^^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


LIFE    IN    POETRY: 
LAW   IN   TASTE 


LIFE   IN   POETKY: 
LAW   IN    TASTE 


TWO  SERIES  OF  LECTURES  DELIVERED 
IN  OXFORD 

1895—1900 


BY 


WILLIAM  JOHN  COURTHOPE,  C.B.,  M.A.,  Oxon. 

HON.    LL.D.    EDINBUROH;    HON".    D.LITT.    DURHAM;    LATE    f'ROKESSOR    OK   POETRV 

IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD  ;    HON.    KKLLOW   OK 

NEW   COLLEGE,    OXFORD 


Eontion 
MACMILLAN   AND   CO.,  Limited 

NKW  YOHK  :  THK  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1901 

All  rights  rfiertfti 


College 
Library, 


fo3  / 

c 


c  ■■'''■ 


VI RO 

gCI    NUl'KR    ARI.STOTELIS     TTC/Di    TTOLrjTLKT]-;    LIBRUM, 

PERBREVEM  ILLUM  QDIDEM  SED  VERE  AUREUM, 

RECENSUIT,  ILLUSTRAVIT,  COMMENDAVIT, 

SAMUELI  HENRICO  BUTCHER, 

TANT-E    PHIIX)S0PHIJ5    INTERPRET!    BTGNO, 

AMICO 

DE    LITTERARUM    REPUBLICA 

EADEM    SECUM    VOLENTI    EADEM    NOLENTI, 

HA8    PR^LECTIONES, 

IN      ORDINEM      COACTAS, 

JAM      RUDE     D0NATU3, 

DEDICAT  PRELECTOR. 


CONTENTS 


PAET  I 

INAUGURAL 
Liberty  and  Authority  in  Matters  of  Taste 


FAGS 

1 


PART  II 
LIFE  IN  POETRY 


l,ECT. 

I.  Poetical  Conception 
II.  Poetical  Expression 

III.  Poetical  Decadence 

IV.  Poetry  and  the  People 


37 

63 

89 

123 


PART  III 
LAW  IN  TASTE 

I.  Intkodl'Ctory 

II.  Aristotle  as  a  Cnrric 

III.  The  Idea  of  Law  in  Fuencu  Poetry 

IV.  The  InEA  of  Law  in  German  Poetky 
V.  The  Ii)i;a  ok  Law  in  English  Poetry 

VI.  Chaucer    . 
VII.  Milton 
VIII,  Pope 

IX.  Byron  and  Tennyson 

X.    CONCLVSION 


159 
190 
222 
252 
278 
299 
329 
360 
388 
419 


PAET    I 

INAUGUKAL 

LIBERTY  AND  AUTHOBITY  IN  MATTERS 
OF  TASTE 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY  IN  MATTERS 
OF  TASTE 

Even  those  of  my  predecessors  who  have  been  called 
with  higher  qualifications  than  myself  to  discourse 
on  Poetry  before  the  University  of  Oxford  must, 
on  contemplating  their  duties,  have  felt  that  they 
had  to  face  a  problem  of  peculiar  difficulty.  The 
Professor  of  Poetry  enjoys  what  I  believe  is  the 
unique  honour  of  being  raised  to  his  Chair  by  the 
vote  of  Convocation.  Yet  though  he  may  thus  be 
said  to  represent  the  oldest  seat  of  learning  in  the 
British  Empire  on  a  subject  of  the  deepest  interest  to 
the  human  imagination,  he  finds  himself  launched  on 
this  wide  sea  of  thought  without  chart  or  compass  or 
any  kind  of  external  instruction  to  guide  him  in  the 
course  which  he  is  expected  to  steer.  He  is,  indeed, 
bound  to  deliver  three  lectures  yearly  during  his 
tenure  of  the  Chair.  But  as  to  the  subject-matter  of 
these  lectures  he  is  under  no  obligation.  Whether  he 
should  examine  and  discuss  the  general  principles  of 
poetry ;    whether    he    should    rather   dwell    on    the 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


practice  of  individual  poets  ;  whether  he  should  draw 
his  illustrations  exclusively  from  the  acknowledged 
classics  of  literature,  or  should  also  handle  the  debate- 
able  questions  of  modern  art ;  at  all  these  points  he 
is  left  entirely  to  his  own  discretion. 

If  he  seeks  for  a  solution  of  his  difficulty  in  the 
definitions  of  language,  he  is  at  once  met  by  an  ambi- 
guity of  terms.  We  can  have  no  doubt  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  words  Logic  and  Natural  Science,  nor 
as  to  the  limitations  imposed  on  those  who  give  in- 
struction in  these  subjects.  But  the  word  Poetry 
may  be  used  to  signify  either  the  outward  form  in 
which  imaginative  thought  is  expressed  by  means 
of  metrical  language,  or  that  inward  conception 
of  the  mind  preliminary  to  creation  which  is  shared 
by  the  poets  with  the  professors  of  the  other  fine 
arts.  Thus  we  may  without  impropriety  speak  of 
the  Poetry  of  Painting  and  even  of  the  Poetry  of 
Architecture. 

Perhaps  with  natural  piety  the  newly  elected 
Professor  of  Poetry  looks  for  guidance  to  the  inten- 
tions or  the  character  of  the  Founder  of  his  Chair. 
But  here  too  search  is  in  vain  :  of  him  little  is 
known  that  is  definite,  nothing  that  is  remarkable. 
Henry  Birkhead  must  have  been  born  in  the  first 
quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century,  for  he  took  his 
degree  of  M.A.  in  1639.  He  appears  to  have  been 
affected  by  the  religious  difficulties  of  his  time,  for 
shortly  after  taking  his  degree  he  became  a  Jesuit, 
but,  soon  returning  to  the  Church  of  England  and 
to   Oxford,   he  was  elected  a   Fellow  of  All  Souls. 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  5 

He  was  known  as  a  skilful  philologist.  He  was  also 
a  writer  of  Latin  verse,  but  there  is  no  particular 
merit  in  the  compositions  of  this  kind  which  he  has 
left  behind  him.  When  the  Civil  War  broke  out  he 
was  prominent  among  the  little  group  of  Oxford 
scholars  and  poets  who  attached  themselves  to  the 
cause  of  the  king,  and  the  most  distinguished  of 
whom  were  John  Cleveland  and  William  Cartwright. 
The  characteristic  features  in  the  poetry  of  these 
men  are  w^ell  known.  They  helped  to  develop  what 
Addison  calls  the  style  of  False  Wit,  and  Johnson 
the  school  of  Metaphysical  Poetry.  Their  object 
was  to  give  distinction  to  any  theme,  however  trivial, 
by  adorning  it  with  a  multitude  of  far-fetched 
metaphors,  similes,  and  allusions.  A  specimen  of 
their  art  survives  in  a  small  volume  of  poems,  written 
by  them  in  co-operation  to  celebrate  the  memory  of  Sir 
Bevill  Grenvill,  who  was  killed  in  a  skirmish  with  the 
Parliamentary  forces  at  Lansdown  Hill.  Birkhead's 
contribution  to  this  poetical  garland  was  not  absol- 
utely the  worst ;  but  he  was  the  champion  of  a  losing 
cause,  alike  in  politics  and  in  poetry.  He  saw  the 
execution  of  the  king  for  whom  he  had  fought  and 
written  ;  the  establishment  of  the  Commonwealth  ; 
the  Restoration  of  the  Monarchy ;  the  Revolution  of 
1688.  Living  till  1695,  he  witnessed  the  influence 
of  the  school  of  Cowley  decline  before  the  rising 
school  of  Dryden ;  and  a  Chair,  which  owed  its 
existence  to  the  liberality  of  one  so  deeply  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  filled  by  its 
first  Professor  almost  at  the  same  time  that  English 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


society  began  to  listen  to  the  criticism  of  the  Tatler 
and  Spectator. 

The  history  of  the  Founder,  then,  throws  no  light 
on  the  duties  attaching  to  this  Chair.  Nor  can  any  clear 
notion  of  rule  or  system  be  gathered  from  the  practice 
of  those  who  have  held  it.  The  list  of  the  Professors 
of  Poetry  indeed  furnishes  us  with  name  after  name 
intimately  associated  with  great  changes  in  the  poetical 
taste  of  this  country.  Prominent  in  the  early  history 
of  the  Chair  we  observe  the  figure  of  Joseph  Spence, 
author  of  the  Polymetis,  and  of  the  better  known 
Anecdotes,  which  so  vividly  illustrate  the  literary 
character  of  an  acre  that  found  its  standard  in  the 
poetry  of  Pope.  Spence  is  followed  after  a  short 
interval  by  Lowth,  who  enlarged  the  range  of  taste 
by  his  lectures  on  Hebrew  Poetry,  and  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  world  of  letters  by  his  dispute 
with  Warburton,  Pope's  commentator  and  biographer. 
Later  in  the  century  appears  Thomas  War  ton,  the 
historian  of  English  Poetry,  and  perhaps  the  earliest 
pioneer  of  the  Romantic  Revival,  which  refreshed 
with  a  new  stream  of  thought  and  sentiment  the 
exhausted  classicism  of  those  times.  Coming  to  the 
present  century,  we  admire  the  fine  and  balanced 
taste  of  Milman,  the  writer  of  the  polished  Newdigate 
prize  poem  on  "  The  Belvedere  Apollo,"  beginning  : 


Heard  ye  the  arrow  hurtle  through  the  sky  1 
Heard  ye  the  dragon  monster's  dying  cry  ? 

and  containing  the  truly  beautiful  lines  descriptive  of 
the  statue  : 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  7 

For  mild  he  seemed  as  in  Elysian  bowers, 
Wasting  in  careless  ease  the  joyous  hours, 
Haughty  as  bards  have  sung,  with  princely  sway 
Curbing  the  fierce,  flame-breathing  steeds  of  day. 
Beauteous  as  vision  seen  in  dreamy  sleep 
By  holy  maid  on  Delphi's  haunted  steep. 
Mid  the  dim  twilight  of  the  laurel  grove, 
Too  fair  to  worship,  too  divine  to  love. 

Next  to  Milman  in  point  of  succession,  and  equal 
to  him  in  scholarship  and  refinement,  the  author  of 
the  Christian  Year  lent  indirectly  the  aid  of  his 
criticism  to  the  Lake  School,  then  still  >  struggling 
against  the  current  of  contemporary  taste.  Keble's 
Prcelectiones,  delivered  as  they  were  in  Latin, 
appealed  to  a  necessarily  limited  audience,  but  a  new 
note  was  struck  when  Matthew  Arnold,  a  name  always 
cherished  with  affectionate  admiration  in  Oxford, 
began  to  lecture  in  English.  With  him  the  classical 
genius  of  poetry  revived  under  new  auspices.  The 
attention  of  the  public  at  large  was  directed  to  the 
form  of  the  Greek  drama  as  a  vehicle  for  the  expres- 
sion of  modern  thought.  Attic  wit  amused  itself 
with  applying  the  standards  of  Hellenic  culture  to 
every  department  of  English  life.  It  seems  to  me 
but  yesterday  that  I  listened  in  statu  pupillari  to 
the  famous  dictum  pronounced  from  this  Chair,  that 
"there  were  no  Wraggs  by  the  llissus."  Neverthe- 
less the  stream  of  taste,  diverted  for  the  moment,  has 
in  our  own  generation  shown  a  tendency  to  flow  back 
into  national  channels,  nor  do  I  know  of  any  book 
which  has  done  more  to  accomplish  this  change  than 
The  Golden   Treasury  of  Emjlish  Song,  a  work  of 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


Greek  beauty,  whicli  will  always  remain  as  a  monu- 
ment of  the  critical  refinement  and  the  large  sym- 
pathy of  my  predecessor,  Francis  Palgrave. 

When  I  consider  all  this  ambiguity  in  the  meaning 
of  terms,  this  silence  as  to  the  intentions  of  the 
Founder  of  the  Chair,  this  diversity  of  taste  and 
practice  among  those  who  have  held  it,  it  appears 
to  me  that  the  first  question  to  be  decided  is,  how 
far  it  is  possible  to  speak  on  Poetry  with  the  con- 
fidence which  is  expected  from  one  who  discharges 
Professorial  duties.  I  accordingly  propose  in  this  my 
Inaugural  Lecture  to  ask  my  audience  to  consider 
with  me  the  question  of  Liberty  and  Authority  in 
Matters  of  Taste,  so  that  we  may  determine  from  this 
point  of  view  what  limits  Reason  imposes  on  the  Art 
of  Poetry,  and  to  what  extent  we  can  apply  in  the 
domain  of  Imagination  those  scientific  methods  which 
are  properly  applied  to  the  objects  of  Sense.  But  I 
can  imagine  that  an  objection  may  be  made  on  the 
very  threshold  of  such  an  inquiry.  It  may  be  said  : 
The  question  you  raise  is  one  that  contains  its  own 
answer.  There  can  be  no  established  law  in  the 
sphere  of  Art  and  Taste. 

The  Mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 

Can  make  a  Heaven  of  Hell,  a  Hell  of  Heaven. 

In  everything  relating  to  aia67)cri<i,  taste,  perception, 
the  individual  is  free.  Genius  is  the  sole  lawgiver 
in  Art ;  and  though  the  critic  may  serve  the  artist 
by  sharpening  the  faculty  of  perception,  yet  if  he 
attempts  to  measure  works  of  art  by  any  external 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  9 

standard,  he  ignores  the  proverbial  and  accepted 
wisdom  of  all  ages :  ttuvtcov  /xerpov  avOpajTroq :  De 
gustibus  non  est  disputandum. 

This  is  a  formidable  objection  ;  the  more  so  because 
it  is  an  echo  of  the  prevailing  philosophy  of  the  day 
which  we  recognise  by  the  name  of  Culture.  The 
philosophy  of  Culture  is  based  on  self-consciousness ; 
that  is  to  say,  in  this  philosophy,  the  consciousness 
of  freedom  in  the  individual  mind  is  made  the 
standard  and  starting-point  for  all  speculation  about 
Religion  and  Art.  Let  me  cite,  as  an  example  of 
what  I  mean  by  self-consciousness,  a  striking  passage 
from  the  chapter  in  Sartor  Resartus,  called  "The 
Everlasting  No "  :  "  The  Everlasting  No  has  said : 
Behold  thou  art  fatherless,  outcast,  and  the  Universe 
is  mine  ;  to  which  my  whole  Me  now  makes  answer, 
/am  not  thine,  but  free  and  for  ever  hate  thee." 
In  the  same  spirit,  though  in  a  less  obscure  and 
poetical  style,  Matthew  Arnold  defines  Criticism  to 
be  the  free  faculty  that  advances  in  the  mind  the 
growth  of  an  inward  Perfection ;  and,  quite  logically 
from  his  own  premises,  he  identifies  Poetry  with  the 
Idea  as  it  exists  in  the  individual  mind  and  contrasts 
it  with  dogmatic  Religion.  "The  future  of  poetry," 
he  says,  "  is  immense,  because  in  poetry,  where  it  is 
worthy  of  its  high  destinies,  our  race  as  time  goes 
on  will  find  an  ever  surer  and  surer  stay.  .  .  .  Our 
religion  has  materialised  itself  in  the  fact,  in  the 
supposed  fact,  and  now  the  fact  is  failing  it.  But  for 
poetry  the  idea  is  everything,  the  rest  is  a  world  of 
illusion,  of  divine  illusion.     Poetry  attaches  its  emo- 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


tions  to  the  idea ;  the  idea  is  the  fact.  The  strongest 
part  of  our  religion  to-day  is  its  unconscious  poetry." 
But  the  opinion  of  those  who  hold  with  the  maxim 
De  gustihus  non  est  disputanduni  is  supported  by  a 
yet  stronger  ally  in  the  prevailing  taste  of  the  age. 
It  seems  to  be  a  necessary  characteristic  of  a  highly 
civilised  society,  that  in  proportion  as  it  grows  im- 
patient of  Authority  in  Belief  it  insists  upon  Novelty 
in  Imagination.  Everywhere  we  hear  the  question 
asked  :  May  we  know  what  this  7iew  doctrine  whereof 
thou  speakest  is  ?  And  from  all  quarters,  in  satisfac- 
tion of  the  demand,  comes  the  answer,  in  the  revela- 
tions of  the  new  Humourist,  the  new  Dramatist,  the 
new  Woman.  The  same  feeling  is  paramount  even 
in  those  whose  imagination  is  accustomed  to  dwell  in 
the  higher  regions  of  art  and  taste,  and  I  know  not 
where  it  is  more  eloquently  expressed  than  in  the 
words  of  an  Oxford  scholar  whose  works  live  in  the 
minds  of  many  of  us  as  his  memory  is  fresh  in 
our  affections.  "  For  us,"  says  Walter  Pater,  "  the 
Renaissance  is  the  name  of  a  many-sided  but  yet 
united  movement  in  which  the  love  of  the  things  of 
the  intellect  and  the  imagination  for  their  own  sake, 
the  desire  of  a  more  liberal  and  comely  way  of  con- 
ceiving life,  make  themselves  felt,  urging  those  who 
experience  this  desire  to  search  out  first  one  and  then 
another  means  of  intellectual  or  imaginative  enjoy- 
ment, and  directing  them  not  merely  to  the  discovery 
of  old  and  forgotten  sources  of  this  enjoyment,  but  to 
divine  new  sources  of  it,  new  experiences,  new  sub- 
jects of  poetry,  new  sources  of  art." 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  ii 

What,  then,  is  to  be  said  in  regard  to  this  maxim, 
De  gustihus  non  est  disputandum,  supported  as  it  is 
by  the  philosophy  of  those  who  preach  the  gospel  of 
self- culture,  and  impelled  by  the  powerful  current 
of  the  public  taste  ?  I  do  not  think  that  there  can 
be  the  slightest  doubt  as  to  the  answer.  To  any  one 
who  raises  such  a  preliminary  objection  as  I  have 
supposed,  I  would  reply :  You  have  stated  strongly 
one  side  of  the  truth,  but  you  have  ignored,  com- 
pletely ignored,  the  other.  You  have  asserted  the 
claims  of  individual  liberty,  and  up  to  a  certain  point 
I  agree  with  you.  I  do  not  deny  that  spiritual 
liberty  is  founded  on  consciousness,  and  hence  the 
self-consciousness  of  the  age  is  part  of  the  problem 
we  are  considering.  I  do  not  deny  that  the  prevail- 
ing rage  for  novelty  must  also  be  taken  into  account. 
Liberty,  variety,  novelty,  are  all  necessary  to  the 
development  of  Art.  Without  novelty  there  can  be 
no  invention,  without  variety  there  can  be  no  char- 
acter, without  liberty  there  can  be  no  life.  Life, 
character,  invention,  these  are  of  the  essence  of 
Poetry.  But  while  you  have  defended  with  energy 
the  freedom  of  the  Individual,  you  have  said  nothing 
of  the  authority  of  Society.  And  yet  the  conviction 
of  the  existence  of  this  authority  is  a  belief  perhaps 
even  more  firmly  founded  in  the  human  mind  than 
the  sentiment  as  to  the  rights  of  individual  liberty. 
If  Henry  Birkhead  had  not  believed  that  the  prin- 
ciples of  poetry  were,  like  those  of  all  other  arts  or 
sciences,  capable,  up  to  a  certain  point  at  all  events, 
of  definition  and  demonstration,  would  he,  being  in 


\ 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


possession  of  all  bis  senses,  have  bequeathed  bis 
property  for  the  endowment  of  this  Chair  ?  If  the 
University  of  Oxford,  as  a  corporate  body,  had  not 
shared  bis  opinion,  would  it  have  accepted  bis  bene- 
faction ?  Could  the  long  succession  of  those  who 
have  filled  this  Chair  have  been  maintained,  if  the 
great  majority  of  the  Professors  of  Poetry,  however 
various  their  opinions,  however  opposite  their  tastes, 
had  not  felt  sure  that  there  was  in  taste,  as  in  science, 
a  theory  of  false  and  true,  in  art,  as  in  conduct,  a 
rule  of  right  and  wrong  ?  And  even  among  those 
who  have  asserted  most  strongly  the  inward  and 
relative  nature  of  poetry,  do  you  think  there  was 
one  so  completely  a  sceptic  as  to  imagine  that  be 
was  the  sole  proprietor  of  the  perception  he  sought 
to  embody  in  words ;  one  who  doubted  his  power, 
by  means  of  accepted  symbols,  to  communicate  to 
his  audience  his  own  ideas  and  feelings  about  ex- 
ternal things  ?  Yet  until  some  man  shall  have  been 
found  bold  enough  to  defend  a  thesis  so  preposterous, 
we  must  continue  to  believe  that  there  is  a  positive 
standard,  by  which  those  at  least  who  speak  a 
common  language  may  reason  about  questions  of 
taste. 

There  is  no  doubt  a  point  at  which  the  principle 
De  gustihus  non  est  disputandum  must  be  strictly 
applied.  Our  English  law  recognises  this.  We  know 
that  when  a  man  pursues  his  own  taste  so  far  as  to 
publish  in  writing  that  which  is  decided  to  be  con- 
trary to  the  law  of  the  land,  the  plea  of  the  offender 
that  he  only  WTote  what  seemed  beautiful  to  him,  or 


INAUGURAL  IN  MASTERS  OF  TASTE  13 

what  he  believed  to  be  true,  will  not  avail  for  his 
protection.  Tastes  of  that  kind  we  do  not  dispute 
about;  we  punish  them.  It  is  seldom  indeed  in 
England  that  any  individual  so  far  oversteps  the 
large  liberties  allowed  him  by  the  law  as  to  translate 
into  action  opinions  which  are  recognised  as  dan- 
gerous to  the  community.  But  beyond  those  appe- 
tites which  are  proscribed  as  illegal  there  are  secret 
proceedings  of  thought  and  perception  which,  while 
they  elude  the  clumsy  vigilance  of  the  law,  may 
poison  the  atmosphere  about  us — tastes  that  corrupt, 
sentiments  that  emasculate,  affectations  that  debase, 
the  whole  spirit  and  character  of  society.  To  treat 
these  with  easy  tolerance  is  only  a  sign  of  social 
cowardice.  A  nation  which  has  a  just  sense  of  its 
own  greatness  and  liberty  must  also  have  a  sense  of 
what  is  ideally  noble  and  beautiful,  and  must  not  be 
afraid  to  condemn  any  departure  from  this  standard. 
And  indeed  all  experience  shows  that  the  instinct  of 
every  society  impels  it  to  assert  its  authority  in 
questions  relating  to  imagination  and  art.  Nature 
bids  us  judge  in  matters  of  taste  :  the  difficulty  is 
how  to  judge  rightly.  Since,  then,  this  is  the  object 
of  our  inquiry,  I  will  ask  you  in  the  first  place  very 
briefly  to  glance  at  the  different  kinds  of  external 
tribunal  by  which  Society  has  endeavoured  to  decide 
questions  of  taste,  in  order  that  we  may  see  how  far 
we  can  accept  their  authority. 

Perhaps  the  form  of  external  authority  which 
most  readily  occurs  to  each  of  us  is  the  Academy  after 
the  French  model.       No  one  will  deny  a  grandeur 


14  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY  parti 

to  the  constitution  and  history  of  this  great  body. 
You  will  remember  what  was  the  object  of  its  crea- 
tion as  described  by  Richelieu,  its  founder :  "  The 
main  function  of  the  Academy  shall  be  to  work  with 
all  possible  care  and  diligence  at  giving  sure  rules  to 
our  language,  and  rendering  it  pure,  eloquent,  and 
capable  of  treating  the  arts  and  sciences."  And 
Renan,  adding  a  slight  emphasis  to  the  idea  of 
Richelieu,  says :  "  The  duty  of  the  Academy  is  to 
preserve  the  delicacy  of  the  French  language."  As 
far  as  regards  the  intellectual  history  of  France,  these 
strictly  conservative  duties  have  been  performed  with 
splendid  fidelity  and  success.  The  Academy  has 
admitted  within  its  walls  almost  every  great  French 
writer  since  the  day  of  its  foundation,  so  that  on 
literary  grounds  it  may  justly  claim  to  speak  with 
the  representative  authority  of  France.  In  the  stan- 
dard of  taste  which  it  has  consistently  upheld  the 
French  nation  has  seen  the  image  of  its  own  orenius. 
One  doubts  whether  to  admire  the  Academy  most 
for  the  thoroughness  with  which  it  has  realised  the 
idea  of  Richelieu,  by  carrying  the  rules  of  the  French 
language  through  the  anarchy  of  the  Revolution,  or 
for  the  courage  with  which  it  has  maintained  the 
standard  of  Renan,  by  preserving  the  delicacy  of 
French  thought  in  the  days  of  M.  Zola. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  so  great  a  triumph  should 
have  profoundly  impressed  the  imagination  of  English 
critics,  or  that  we  should  frequently  hear  the  opinion 
expressed,  that  it  would  be  an  excellent  thing  if  we 
could  have  an  institution  of  the  same  kind  in  Eng- 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  15 

land.  Those  who  speak  in  this  way  usually  support 
themselves  by  the  authority  of  Matthew  Arnold,  and 
refer  to  a  lecture  delivered,  I  believe,  from  this  Chair, 
on  the  Literary  Influence  of  Academies.  But  they 
seem  to  me  to  misunderstand  the  mind  of  that 
eminent  critic,  because  though  all  his  arguments 
point  to  the  foundation  of  an  Academy  in  England, 
he  concludes  as  follows :  "  An  Academy  quite 
like  the  French  Academy,  a  sovereign  organ  of 
the  highest  literary  opinion,  a  recognised  authority 
in  matters  of  intellectual  tone  and  taste,  we  shall 
hardly  have,  and  perhaps  we  ought  not  to  wish  to 
have  it."  That  is  the  conclusion  of  common  sense, 
and  the  most  elementary  considerations  show  why  it 
must  be  so. 

The  French  Academy  is  an  effect,  not  a  cause  ;  it 
is  the  product  mainly  of  certain  intellectual  qualities 
of  the  French  people.  It  was  founded  as  an  institution 
because,  at  a  certain  point  of  their  history,  the  French 
people  became  conscious  that  they  possessed  these 
qualities,  and  a  number  of  representative  men  began 
to  form  themselves  into  a  society  for  the  purpose  of 
discussing  questions  of  taste  and  expression.  They 
had  no  intention  of  initiating  or  legislating :  they 
came  together  to  discuss  and  to  judge.  The  English 
people  do  not  possess  that  analytical  and  logical 
genius  which  would  enable  them  to  constitute  a 
representative  assembly  for  the  same  purpose. 

But  if  the  French  Academy  derives  its  repre- 
sentative character  from  the  nature  of  the  French 
intellect,  the  official  prestige  and  authority  it  possesses 


i6  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY  part  i 

come  to  it  solely  from  a  political  source.  It  was,  in 
fact,  the  offspring  of  the  French  Monarchy.  It  was 
established  by  the  king ;  for  a  long  time  the  king 
retained  and  exercised  the  power  of  veto  in  its 
elections :  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  make  it 
a  really  comprehensive  and  representative  assembly 
if  all  the  best  minds  of  France  had  not  first  found 
a  natural  centre  of  attraction  in  the  Court.  Even 
therefore  if  the  qualities  of  the  English  genius 
facilitated,  instead  of  hindering,  the  constitution  of 
an  Academy  like  the  French,  the  decentralisation  of 
English  institutions  and  our  habits  of  individual 
liberty  would  necessarily  prevent  such  a  body  from 
exercising  any  authority. 

I  miofht  dwell  on  other  Courts,  of  the  nature  of 
Academies,  by  means  of  which  Society  at  different 
times  has  attempted  to  pronounce  judgment  in 
matters  of  taste.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  Coterie, 
which  may  be  defined  as  a  miniature  Academy  with- 
out official  status,  and  which  under  various  conditions 
has  exercised  great  influence  in  Italy,  France,  and 
England.  But  as  the  Coterie  represents  no  body  of 
opinion  beyond  itself,  and  as  it  flourishes  most  in 
an  aristocratic  form  of  society,  it  is  unnecessary  to 
speak  of  it  in  detail,  and  I  pass  on  to  consider  a 
tribunal  with  whose  decrees  we  are  all  familiar,  the 
Court  of  Public  Opinion. 

Public  opinion  delivers  judgment  either  collec- 
tively, or  representatively  by  means  of  an  anonymous 
press.  When  it  acts  collectively  it  is  certainly  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  of  human  phenomena,  and 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  17 

I  think  that  the  spectacle  of  vast  bodies  of  men 
giving  simultaneous  expression  to  their  consciousness 
of  what  is  right  furnishes  the  strongest  refutation 
that  could  be  desired  of  the  fallacy  in  the  maxim, 
De  gustihus  non  est  disputandum.  Such  are  the 
judgments  pronounced  by  the  spectators  in  a  theatre, 
or  by  the  audience  at  a  public  meeting  when  they 
express  their  approval  of  or  dissent  from  the  opinions 
of  an  orator.  On  these  occasions  the  verdict  of 
public  opinion  is,  for  the  moment  at  least,  irresistible. 
The  dramatist  is  not  obliged  to  regard  it  as  final : 
he  may  reason  with  his  judges,  as  Aristophanes 
did  in  the  Clouds;  he  may  even  proclaim  his  con- 
tempt for  their  taste,  as  Ben  Jonson  did  in  his  Ode 
to  Himself  after  the  failure  of  his  Neiv  Inn;  but 
he  knows  that  there  is  no  higher  court  to  which  he 
can  appeal. 

It  must  be  allowed  that,  as  a  tribunal  of  taste, 
public  opinion,  or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say 
popular  opinion,  possesses  certain  great  virtues.  For 
one  thing,  the  taste  of  the  people  is  almost  always 
natural,  and  natural  taste  is  the  foundation  of  good 
taste.  When  a  whole  society — at  least  a  society 
which  is  both  historic  and  free — judges  collectively, 
its  instincts  will  not  allow  it  to  go  very  far  astray. 
It  will  reject  what  is  nasty  and  unwholesome ;  it  will 
favour  such  tastes  as  are  on  the  whole  manly,  and 
healthy,  and  vigorous.  The  judges  in  the  gallery 
of  a  theatre,  who  hiss  the  villain  of  a  play  for  his 
evil  sentiments,  are  representatives  of  the  authority 
of  popular  opinion.     Critics  of  this  stamp  will  also 


i8  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY  part  i 

show  themselves  intolerant  of  such  fundamental 
faults  of  taste  as  affectation  and  conceit,  which  pass 
unscathed  the  judgment,  for  example,  of  the  Coterie. 
When  a  dramatist  or  any  other  kind  of  artist  shows 
that  he  is  thinking  more  of  his  own  nature  than  of 
human  nature,  any  large  audience  will  be  quick  to 
find  him  out.  Nor  is  the  collective  verdict  of  the 
public  ever  consciously  unjust,  because,  as  it  judges 
in  the  mass,  it  is  not  affected  by  those  petty  personal 
motives  of  envy,  jealousy,  and  resentment  which  so 
often  disturb  the  reason  of  private  critics. 

But  public  opinion  as  a  court  of  justice  has  certain 
obvious  limitations  and  weaknesses.  Like  the  old 
Teutonic  assemblies  of  freemen  which  announced 
their  decisions  by  the  shouts  of  the  multitude  and 
the  clashing  of  shields,  its  powers  are  restricted  to 
simple  approval  or  rejection.  Moreover  its  judg- 
ments are  always  arbitrary,  being  founded  on  emotion, 
not  on  reason.  The  standard  by  which  it  judges 
may  be  constituted  out  of  the  merest  prejudice  and 
ignorance,  yet  as  it  knows  of  no  other,  it  will  regard 
its  own  canon  as  conclusive.  In  no  other  tribunal 
is  the  last  word  of  the  despot  so  decisively  uttered : 
**  Hoc  volo,  sic  jubeo,  stat  pro  ratione  voluntas." 

Again,  even  when  it  decides  more  deliberately 
through  the  anonymous  criticism  of  the  press,  public 
opinion  is  subject  to  weaknesses,  arising  from  hurry 
and  superficiality,  which  lower  its  authority  as  a  tri- 
bunal of  taste.  To  judge  rightly  in  matters  of  taste 
we  must  have  time.  An  enduring  work  of  art  is  the 
product  of  meditation  and  labour,  and,  from  the  nature 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  19 

of  things,  it  cannot  be  measured  by  a  mere  ephemeral 
standard.  The  press  can  and  does  judge  with  admir- 
able accuracy  of  the  mass  of  novels,  poems,  plays,  and 
pictures,  which  men  read,  glance  at,  talk  about,  and 
forget :  its  methods  of  swift  intuition  and  general- 
isation are  inadequate  to  estimate  the  work  of  a 
Raphael  or  a  Milton, 

I  think  that  from  the  facts  I  have  attempted  to 
put  before  you  two  conclusions  may  safely  be  drawn. 
One  is,  that  society  in  all  ages  has  been  constantly 
attempting  to  assert  its  authority  in  matters  of  taste  ; 
the  other  is,  that  no  form  of  social  organisation  of 
which  the  world  has  had  experience  is  likely  to  be 
accepted  as  a  tribunal  of  taste  in  such  a  country  as 
England.  The  Academy  of  the  French  pattern  is 
defective  because  it  is  the  offspring  of  centralisation ; 
the  Coterie  is  defective  because  it  is  not  represent- 
ative ;  Public  Opinion  is  defective  because  it  has  no 
recognised  standard  of  judgment,  and  also  because  its 
judgments  are  too  rough  and  ready  to  be  applicable 
to  the  higher  creations  of  Art.  It  may  indeed  be 
doubted  whether  for  such  a  society  as  ours,  so  full  of 
self-consciousness  and  the  spirit  of  individual  liberty, 
so  charged  with  party  feeling,  divided  between  so 
many  sections  and  interests,  any  representative  body 
could  ever  be  formed  which  would  be  recognised  as 
giving  expression  to  the  deliberate  sense  of  the  com- 
munity on  purely  aesthetic  questions.  Yet  one  thing 
we  may  surely  hope  for — the  growth  of  an  educated 
Public  Conscience  in  matters  of  taste  which  shall 
exercise   a   general   influence    on   private  judgment. 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


Perhaps  the  most  signal  of  the  services  performed  by 
Matthew  Arnold  was  the  constancy  with  which  he 
insisted  on  the  necessity  of  exercising  right  reason 
within  the  sphere  of  criticism.  This  is  no  mere 
rhetorical  phrase.  For  not  only  is  it  possible  to 
apply  right  methods  of  reasoning  in  art  and  taste, 
but  certain  evil  consequences  inevitably  ensue  when 
these  methods  are  neglected.  Every  critic  who 
attempts  to  decide  a  disputed  point  of  taste  must 
satisfy  two  conditions ;  in  the  first  place  he  must 
judge  judicially,  that  is  to  say,  he  must  strive  to 
regard  the  object  of  his  criticism  scientifically  and 
apart  from  prejudice ;  in  the  second  place  he  must 
verify  his  own  conclusions  by  reference  to  some 
recognised  standard  of  authority.  This  seems  almost 
like  the  statement  of  a  truism,  and  yet  how  rare 
it  is  to  find  both  requirements  fulfilled !  How 
often,  on  the  one  hand,  does  private  dislike  and 
prejudice  intervene  to  cut  off"  the  critic  from  the  sight 
of  his  object ;  how  often,  on  the  other,  is  he  satisfied 
with  the  unassisted  decision  of  his  own  consciousness  ! 
And  what  are  the  consequences  ?  Let  me  illustrate 
by  two  notable  examples  what  happens  when  critics 
content  themselves  with  satisfying  one  of  the  essential 
conditions  of  good  criticism  without  attending  to  the 
other. 

Probably  no  literary  judgment  ever  produced  more 
disastrous  results  in  the  interests  of  2:ood  taste  than 
the  article  in  the  Quarterly  Revieiv  on  Keats's  Endy- 
mion.  Here  the  issue  as  between  Liberty  and 
Authority  was  raised  in   a  very  trenchant  manner. 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  21 

Keats  was  an  innovator.  Both  in  his  treatment  of 
his  subject,  in  his  diction,  and  in  his  versification,  he 
came  into  violent  collision  with  the  canons  of  com- 
position accepted  in  his  day.  Yet  in  the  points  of 
taste  which  called  for  a  decision  there  was  really 
nothing  new.  The  question,  for  example,  as  to  the 
right  of  coining  new  words  or  reviving  disused  words 
in  poetry  was  as  old  as  Horace  ;  it  had  been  debated 
in  Italy  by  Castiglione  in  his  Courtier;  it  had  been 
raised  in  France  by  the  Pleiad,  and  afterwards  dis- 
cussed by  almost  every  French  critic  ;  it  was  familiar 
in  England  since  the  publication  of  Lyly's  Euphues. 
The  ruling  on  the  point  is  given  with  admirable 
clearness  in  Horace's  Ars  Poetica — 

Multa  renascentur  quae  jam  cecidere,  cadentque 
Quae  nunc  sunt  in  honore  vocabula,  si  volet  usus, 
Quern  penes  arbitrium  est  et  jus  et  norma  loquendi. 

Usus ;  usage  ;  the  genius  of  the  language  ;  there 
was  the  law.  The  sole  question  was  whether  Keats 
had  violated  the  law,  and  if  so,  with  what  amount  of 
justification.  Nothing  could  have  been  simpler  than 
to  apply  the  test  of  right  reason.  But  how  did 
Croker  deliver  judgment?  In  the  first  place  he 
announced  that  he  had  only  read  one  book  of  Endy- 
mion,  which  was  quite  enough  for  him.  In  the  next 
place,  as  to  the  particular  point  at  issue,  lie  decided 
as  follows  : — 

"  By  this  time  our  readers  must  be  pretty  well 
satisfied  as  to  the  meaninfj  of  ]\Ir.  Keats's  sentences 
and    the   structure    of  his    lines.     We    now  present 


LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


them  with  some  of  the  new  words  with  which,  in 
imitation  of  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  he  adorns  our  Language, 
We  are  tokl  that  *  turtles  passion  their  voices  ; '  that 
an  arbour  was  nested ;  and  a  lady's  locks  gordianed 
up ;  and  to  supply  the  names  of  the  nouns  thus 
verbalised,  Mr.  Keats  with  great  fecundity  spawns 
new  ones  :  such  as  '  men-slugs  and  human  serpentry ' ; 
the  honey-feel  of  bliss  ;  wives  prepare  needments ; 
and  so  forth." 

Now  as  to  the  substance  of  this  judgment  we 
cannot  doubt  that  Croker  was  right.  He  had  satisfied 
one  of  the  conditions  of  sound  criticism  in  referring; 
to  a  positive  standard  of  authority,  and,  like  all  sane 
critics  before  him,  he  had  taken  usage  as  the  standard 
of  measurement,  Keats  had  offended  against  the 
genius  of  the  English  language  with  crudeness, 
violence,  and  affectation.  But  could  anything  be 
more  unjudicial  than  the  manner  in  which  Croker 
told  him  so,  without  making  any  allowance  for  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  young  man,  and  evidently  a  young- 
man  of  genius?  More  unfortunate  still  in  the  in- 
terests of  criticism  was  the  fact  that  Croker's  judg- 
ment, besides  being  offensive  and  contemptuous  in 
tone,  was  in  certain  points  incorrect.  The  standard 
of  usage  by  which  he  measured  was  simply  the 
standard  recognised  in  his  own  day  without  reference 
to  the  historic  growth  of  the  language,  and  he  showed 
ignorance  in  supposing  Keats  to  have  been  merely 
coining  new  words.  Hence  the  "cockney  school  "  as 
he  called  the  innovators,  while  they  justly  complained 
of  his   manners,   could   also  point  to  his   mistakes. 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  23 

They  hardened  themselves  in  impenitence,  and  began 
to  criticise  by  rules  of  their  own  the  practice  of  the 
prevailing  school,  whom,  with  a  ludicrous  self-im- 
portance, they  called  the  disciples  of  "one  Boileau." 
The  general  reader  was  puzzled  with  the  dispute,  but 
when  he  turned  to  Endymion,  and  found  there  such 
an  exquisite  passage  as 

Whence  come  ye,  jolly  Satyrs,  whence  come  ye. 
So  many,  and  so  many,  and  such  glee  ? 

he  was  amazed  at  the  blindness  of  the  Quarterly 
Reviewer,  and  concluding  that  he  must  be  entirely 
wrong,  rejected  his  whole  standard  of  measurement 
— though  it  was  really  a  just  one — to  the  irreparable 
damage  of  good  taste  and  common  sense. 

This  is  an  example  of  the  consequences  of  not 
judging  judicially.  As  an  illustration  of  the  results 
of  judging  by  a  merely  private  standard,  I  think  I 
shall  not  be  mistaken  in  citing  Matthew  Arnold's 
lecture  on  the  Literary  Influence  of  Academies. 
You  will  remember  that  he  there  criticises  a  great 
number  of  English  authors,  amongst  others  Addison, 
Jeremy  Taylor,  Burke,  and  Mr.  Ruskin,  from  whose 
works  he  quotes  passages  as  samples  of  bad  taste 
in  writing.  It  is  plain  that  Matthew  Arnold  is 
here  judging  judicially.  All  the  examples  he  pro- 
duces are  really  examples  of  bad  taste.  All  of  them 
are  selected  with  great  fineness  of  perception  and 
great  accuracy  of  instinct.  But  whereas  the  kind  of 
taste  they  exhibit  is  extremely  diverse,  specific,  and 
characteristic   of    the    individual,    JMatthew   Arnold 


2^  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


chooses  for  his  own  purposes  to  ascribe  their  defects 
to  one  single  source,  and  that  a  national  one.  He 
says :  *'  Adopting  Dr.  Newman's  expressive  word, 
I  say  that  in  the  bulk  of  the  intellectual  work  of  a 
nation  which  has  no  centre,  no  intellectual  metropolis 
like  an  Academy — like  M.  Sainte-Beuve's  '  sovereign 
organ  of  opinion,'  like  M.  Kenan's  '  recognised  authority 
in  matters  of  tone  and  taste ' — there  is  observable 
a  note  of  provinciality.  Now  to  get  rid  of  pro- 
vinciality is  a  certain  stage  of  culture,  a  stage  the 
positive  results  of  which  we  must  not  make  of  too 
much  importance,  but  which  is  nevertheless  indis- 
pensable ;  for  it  brings  us  on  to  the  platform,  where 
alone  the  best  and  highest  intellectual  work  can  be 
said  to  begin."  There  have  been  some  who  shrank 
from  bringino;  an  indictment  ao^ainst  a  whole  nation. 
Matthew  Arnold  had  no  such  diffidence.  But  what 
is  the  supposed  standard  by  which  he  judges  ?  The 
note  of  provinciality  ?  How  can  the  genius  of  a 
great  nation  be  called  provincial  ?  Of  what  central 
society  is  a  nation  a  province  ?  Is  it  not  plain  that, 
when  Matthew  Arnold  produces  a  rhetorical  effect  by 
a  phrase  like  this,  he  is  judging  by  a  measure  re- 
cognised only  by  himself?  The  world  would  not 
have  accepted  Quintilian's  judgment  on  Seneca's  style 
as  conclusive,  if  he  had  not  criticised  it  by  canons 
which  the  world  could  understand. 

Thus  then  w^e  are  brought  to  the  practical  question 
— "What  is  the  final  authority  to  which  right  reason 
should  refer  in  judging  of  matters  of  taste  ?  I  do 
not  think  that  we  can  be  in  doubt  about  the  answer. 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  25 

In  every  art  the  standard  is  the  example  of  the  great 
artist,  the  practice  of  those  who  are  acknowledged  to 
be  masters  in  the  art.  Not,  however,  because  they 
are  arbitrary  dictators.  There  are,  I  think,  two 
paramount  reasons  why  the  standard  must  be  settled 
by  them.  One  is  that  argument  from  antiquity 
which  is  so  admirably  stated  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
in  his  Discourses  on  Painting.  He  says :  "  The  modern 
who  recommends  himself  as  a  standard  may  justly  be 
suspected  as  ignorant  of  the  true  end,  and  unac- 
quainted with  the  proper  object,  of  the  art  which  he 
professes.  To  follow  such  a  guide  will  not  only  re- 
tard the  student  but  mislead  him.  On  whom  then 
can  he  rely,  or  who  will  show  him  the  path  that  leads 
to  excellence  ?  The  answer  is  obvious  :  those  great 
masters  who  have  travelled  the  same  road  with 
success  are  the  most  likely  to  conduct  others.  The 
works  of  those  who  have  stood  the  test  of  ages  have 
a  claim  to  that  respect  and  veneration  to  which  no 
modern  can  pretend.  The  duration  and  stability  of 
their  fame  is  sufficient  to  evince  that  it  has  not  been 
suspended  upon  the  slender  thread  of  fashion  and 
caprice,  but  bound  to  the  human  heart  by  every  tie 
of  sympathetic  approbation." 

But  there  is,  it  seems  to  me,  another  reason  even 
more  powerful  than  the  argument  from  antiquity, 
though  it  merely  presents  a  different  side  of  the  same 
truth  :  great  artists  are  the  standards  of  art,  because 
they  are  old  no  doubt,  but  also  because  they  are 
representative.  I  take  all  great  poetry  to  be  not  so 
much  what  Plato  thought  it,  the  utterance  of  indi- 


26  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


vidual  genius,  half  inspired,  half  insane,  as  the 
enduring  voice  of  the  soul  and  conscience  of  man 
living  in  society.  The  great  poets  and  orators  of 
Greece  and  Rome  are  justly  accepted  as  our  masters 
in  eloquence,  because  their  works  present  in  an  ideal 
form  lasting  records  of  the  thoughts  and  emotions 
which  the  human  heart  experiences  in  the  various 
vicissitudes  of  active  life.  For  example,  Milton  says, 
in  words  which  are  a  living  part  of  our  language. 

Fame  is  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise 

(That  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind) 

To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days. 

But  is  it  not  a  striking  thought  that,  between  two 
and  three  thousand  years  before,  the  same  sublime 
logic  should  be  found  in  the  w^ords  with  which  Homer 
makes  Sarpedon  animate  the  courage  of  Glaucus,  and 
which  have  scarcely  lost  anything  of  their  original 
nobility,  in  the  version  of  Homer's  English  translator? 

Could  all  our  care  elude  the  gloomy  grave 
Which  claims  alike  the  fearful  and  the  brave, 
For  lust  of  fame  I  would  not  vainly  dare 
In  fighting  fields  to  urge  the  soul  to  war. 
But  since,  alas  !  ignoble  age  must  come, 
Disease,  and  death's  inexorable  doom, 
The  life  that  others  pay  let  us  bestow, 
And  give  to  Fame  what  we  to  Nature  owe. 
Brave  though  we  fall,  and  honoured  if  we  live. 
Or  let  us  glory  gain,  or  glory  give. 

We  watch  the  conflict  between  divine  and  human 
law  in  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles,  and  we  realise  the 
eternal  truth  of  the  dramatic  situation  when  we  pass 
to  the  history  of  England  and  see  it  repeated  in  the 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  27 

tragedy  of  Alice  Lisle.  How  intelligible  seems  the 
dispute  between  the  Just  and  Unjust  Argument  in 
the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes  to  the  old  English  Tory ! 
Why  do  we  in  this  country  feel  a  peculiar  sublimity  in 
the  famous  oath  of  Demosthenes  on  the  souls  of  those 
who  fought  at  Marathon  and  Salamis  ?  Is  it  not 
because  we  cherish  the  memories  of  the  men  who 
perished  under  Nelson  and  AVellington  in  a  later 
defence  of  European  liberty  ?  And  when  we  read  the 
ever  memorable  lines  of  Virgil, 

Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  mejiiento  ; 

Hae  tibi  erunt  artes,  pacisque  imponere  morem, 

what  Englishman  is  not  proud  to  feel  how  justly 
they  may  be  applied  to  those  who  administer  the 
government  of  India  ? 

I  conceive  that  it  is  this  political  spirit — I  use  the 
word  'political  in  its  wide  Greek  sense— which  has 
given  a  special  character  to  the  study  of  the  classics 
in  the  English  Universities  since  the  days  of  Erasmus 
and  Colet,  of  Cheke  and  Ascham.  Our  ideal  of 
classical  education  differs  alike  from  the  resthetic  ideal 
of  the  Italian  Humanists,  who  deified  the  ancients 
as  absolute  lawgivers  in  the  sphere  of  abstract 
form,  and  from  the  scientific  ideal  of  the  German 
Universities,  which  regard  tlie  dead  languages  as  one 
of  the  many  departments  of  abstract  knowledge. 
We  in  England,  on  the  contrary,  look  on  the  classics 
as  a  great  school  of  taste,  and  we  consider  the  educa- 
tion  of  taste   itself  as   a   means   to   a   practical,    a 


28  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY  iart  i 

political  end.  We  have  not  allowed  the  necessarily 
Pagan  genius  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  to 
undermine  the  foundations  of  the  Christian  faith, 
but  treating  their  works  as  living  creations  of 
humanity,  interpreting  their  spirit  and  character 
with  the  kindred  sympathy  of  freemen,  we  have 
familiarised  ourselves  for  centuries  with  the  principles 
that  governed  their  imagination.  We  appreciate 
their  singular  felicity  in  the  choice  of  subject,  the 
chastened  elegance  of  their  composition,  the  har- 
monious purity  of  their  style. 

Testimony  is  borne  to  the  efficacy  of  this  system  of 
University  education  by  the  most  illustrious  of  those 
who  have  pursued  a  diflferent  object.  "  The  office  of 
the  English  Universities,"  says  Dollinger,  "is  by 
means  of  the  study  of  classics  and  mathematics,  com- 
bined with  logic  and  moral  philosophy  and  a  college 
education  to  turn  out  for  the  benefit  of  the  State  and 
Society  the  cultivated  and  independent  gentleman. 
I  will  not  conceal  the  fact  that  these  renovated  and 
improved  editions  of  the  old  and  unfortunately  ex- 
tinct German  bursaries,  the  colleges  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  have  many  a  time  as  I  observed  their 
working  on  the  spot  awakened  in  me  feelings  of 
envy,  and  led  me  to  long  for  the  time  when  we 
might  again  have  something  of  the  kind  ;  for  I  could 
plainly  perceive  that  their  effect  was  to  make  in- 
struction take  root  in  the  mind,  and  become  a  part 
of  it,  and  that  their  influence  extended  beyond  the 
mere  communication  of  knowledge,  to  the  ennobling 
elevation  of  the  life  and  character." 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  29 

What  member  of  the  English  Universities,  above 
all  what  member  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  would 
wish  to  see  an  education  which  has  borne  such  fruit 
as  this  displaced  in  favour  of  a  system  calculated  to 
promote  mere  self-culture  ?  Year  by  year  the  Univer- 
sities send  to  the  Bar,  to  the  Public  Services,  to  the 
great  army  of  Journalism,  bands  of  recruits  who  diffuse 
the  influence  of  their  own  tastes,  and  help  to  direct  the 
movements  of  popular  opinion.  Were  there  to  be  any 
breach  between  the  educated  taste  of  the  Universities, 
and  the  natural  taste  of  the  public  at  large,  the 
whole  system  of  irrigation  in  English  aesthetic  culture 
would  be  tainted  at  its  source.  The  taste  of  the  Uni- 
versities would  become  more  monastic,  more  epi- 
curean ;  the  taste  of  the  public  would  grow  more 
rude,  more  barbarous.  It  should  surely  therefore  be 
the  object  of  all  patriotic  endeavour  to  strengthen  the 
established  principle  of  authority  in  matters  of  taste, 
and  to  widen  its  base  so  as  to  meet  the  necessities  of 
our  imperial  society. 

A  great  opportunity  of  advancing  in  this  direc- 
tion seems  to  be  offered  by  the  foundation  of  the 
new  Oxford  School  of  English  Language  and  Litera- 
ture. For  while  the  ancient  classics  must  always 
remain  our  primal  authority  in  determining  what 
are  the  principles  of  good  taste,  it  is  in  the  classics 
of  our  own  country  that  we  can  best  study  the  manner 
in  which  these  principles  have  been  and  should  be 
applied.  Tlie  tablets  of  the  English  School  are  still 
almost  a  blank  :  it  will  depend  upon  the  first  teachers 
and  examiners  what  shall  be  written  in  them.     You 


30  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY  part 

may  make  it  a  genuine  school  of  taste,  which  shall 
show  the  student  what  is  the  true  standard  of  excel- 
lence in  English  writing,  and  how  he  may  measure 
for  himself  the  aberrations  of  eccentric  genius.  In 
that  case  the  School  will  follow  the  lines  of  Literce 
Humaniores.  You  will  cause  the  greatest  English 
writers  to  be  studied  mainly  for  the  purpose 
of  understanding  their  spirit  and  character ;  you 
will  show  each  of  them  in  his  just  propor- 
tions, and  the  place  which  he  occupies  in  our 
literature  as  a  whole ;  how  he  was  affected  by, 
how  he  represented,  and  how  he  himself  influenced, 
the  movement  of  his  own  age.  In  such  a  school  the 
exact  study  of  language  will  be,  as  it  is  in  Liter^cB 
Humaniores,  of  the  highest  value  in  helping  to  un- 
lock the  secrets  of  thought,  and  in  exhibiting  the 
orderly  development  of  the  law^s  of  taste  and  harmony. 
Language  is  the  instrument  of  thought,  and,  like  the 
winged  sandals  of  Mercury,  it  may  aid  the  mind  to 
mount  into  the  higher  regions  of  thought  and  imagina- 
tion. But  it  would  be  an  error  to  take  Mercury's 
sandals  as  the  source  of  his  divinity,  and  some- 
thing of  the  kind  would  happen,  if,  as  might  be  done 
in  the  English  School,  the  study  of  language  were 
allowed  to  predominate  over  the  study  of  literature. 
The  study  of  language  in  itself  is,  like  every  branch 
of  science,  of  the  highest  intellectual  interest.  But 
were  it  to  be  raised  above  literature,  or  even  studied 
apart  from  literature,  I  venture  to  say  that  you  would 
be  wasting  an  unequalled  opportunity  ;  for  you  would 
be  introducing  a  foreign  educational  principle  which 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  31 

can  never  acclimatise  itself  in  the  genius  of  England 
and  Oxford.  You  might  under  such  conditions  get  a 
school  of  archaeological  research,  which  would  doubt- 
less be  of  use  and  interest  to  the  special  student ;  but 
you  would  not  get,  what  you  may  still  get,  a  school 
capable  of  exercising  a  national  influence  in  the 
discipline  of  English  taste. 

I  have  now  arrived  at  something  like  a  practical 
conclusion  to  the  inquiry  with  which  I  started.  A 
question  is  naturally  raised  by  the  scepticism  of 
an  old  society,  whether  any  law  or  authority  can 
be  recognised  as  binding  in  matters  of  taste.  The 
universal  instinct,  which  in  every  society  prompts 
men  to  insist  on  their  right  of  judging  in  such 
matters,  seems  to  point  to  the  existence  of  some 
principle  of  authority  in  the  constitution  of  human 
nature.  But  in  what  way  can  this  authority  be 
enforced  ?  I  have  shown  that  it  is  idle  to  expect 
Englishmen  to  submit  their  private  liberty  of  judg- 
ment to  any  external  tribunal  of  taste.  It  would 
appear,  however,  to  be  a  less  hopeless  task,  by  close 
attention  to  great  works  of  art,  to  create  a  conscious- 
ness of  what  is  truly  beautiful,  and  so  to  form  a 
canon  of  taste  which  shall  impose  itself  on  the  in- 
dividual judgment.  A  public  conscience  of  this  kind 
must  be  the  product  of  education,  and  the  education 
which  is  required  is  precisely  tliat  which  has  been 
long  established  in  the  Eufjlish  Universities. 

As  for  the  particular  functions  of  this  Chair  in 
promoting  the  education  of  taste,  several  conditions 
have  to  be  regarded.     I  do  not  think  that  the  duties 


32  LIBERTY  AND  AUTHORITY 


of  a  Professor  of  Poetry  lie  mainly  in  the  illustration 
of  technical  principles ;  for  in  poetry,  even  less  than 
in  the  other  arts,  is  great  work  the  result  of  mere 
attention  to  rules ;  it  is  the  result  of  the  inspiration, 
corrected  by  the  severe  self -discipline,  of  genius. 
Moreover,  the  rare  occasions  on  which  the  Professor 
of  Poetry  makes  his  appearance  in  the  lecture-room 
must  preclude  him  from  giving  that  minute  and 
systematic  instruction  in  the  subject  which  is  rather 
the  function  of  a  resident  Professor  of  Literature 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  questions  of  taste 
constantly  and  naturally  rising  out  of  the  doubts 
of  a  self-conscious  society — conflicts  between  Liberty 
and  Authority,  between  Novelty  and  Tradition — 
which  suggest  subjects  that  may  be  profitably  con- 
sidered from  this  Chair.  I  shall  therefore  hold 
myself  at  liberty  to  treat  Poetry  in  that  wide  and 
general  sense  of  the  word  which  makes  it  coexten- 
sive with  the  creative  power  of  the  Imagination,  and 
I  shall  devote  my  lectures  mainly  to  examining  the 
laws  and  conditions  on  which  the  life  of  Poetry 
depends.  This  may  be  done  in  a  variety  of  ways  : 
by  dwelling  on  the  principles  of  great  poetry ;  by 
observing  the  manner  in  w^hich  these  have  been 
applied  by  great  poets  ;  by  analysing  the  causes  of 
national  movements  of  imagination ;  and  by  tracing 
the  development  of  individual  genius.  Much  also 
may  be  learned  from  the  fate  of  poets,  who  in  all 
ages  have  fallen  victims  to  Affectation,  Exaggeration, 
Conceit,  False  Wit,  False  Sentiment,  in  a  word  to 
all  the  immortal  fallacies  by  which  the  fascination  of 


INAUGURAL  IN  MATTERS  OF  TASTE  ^3 

novelty  bewitches  the  inexperience  and  credulity  of 
taste.  I  am  aware  that  the  task  I  propose  to  myself 
is  one  of  great  difficulty.  To  define  the  laws  of 
Good  Taste  becomes  always  harder  as  civilised 
society  moves  farther  away  from  the  primal  sources 
of  poetical  inspiration.  But  at  least  we  shall  be 
looking  in  the  right  direction  if  we  take  for  our 
standard  the  principle  which  Pericles  recommended 
to  the  Athenians — (piXoaocjiovfMev  dvev  ^aXaKva'^  :  We 
pursue  culture  in  a  manly  spirit. 


PAET    II 

LIFE    IN    POETKY 


POETICAL   CONCEPTION 

There  is  a  certain  irony  in  the  relation  between 
art  and  criticism.  The  artist  under  the  impulse  of 
imitation  within  him  follows  the  lead  of  Nature,  and 
brings  his  imaginative  idea  into  being  guided  only 
by  instinct  and  judgment.  At  a  later  stage  in  the 
history  of  society,  perhaps  after  creative  energy  has 
ceased,  comes  the  critic,  and  traces  the  idea  back- 
ward as  far  as  he  can  through  the  artist's  mind, 
always  stopping  short,  however,  of  the  real  sources 
of  life.  Then  deeming  that  he  has  penetrated  the 
secret  of  art,  the  critic  begins  to  lay  down  the  law 
for  the  artist,  and  his  law  is  usually  wrong. 

Wrong,  indeed,  he  is  almost  bound  to  be,  because 
he  has  followed  the  order  not  of  Nature  l)ut  of  logic. 
Yet,  so  vast  is  the  persuasive  power  of  logic,  that 
deductive  criticism,  a  priori  criticism,  has  had  an 
appreciable  influence  on  the  course  of  literature, 
has,  in  fact,  been  the  parent  of  all  the  Academies. 
And  it  is  observable  that  this  kind  of  criticism 
flourishes   most  in   societies   in    which    the   spirit  of 


38  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

political  liberty  has  been,  or  is  being,  extinguished. 
Academies  began  to  thrive  in  the  Italian  Eepublics 
after  they  had  lost  their  freedom,  in  France  when  the 
nation  was  tending  towards  absolute  monarchy.  As 
regards  the  art  of  poetry,  those  who  helped  to  found 
the  Academies  submitted  themselves  without  reserva- 
tion to  the  authority  of  Aristotle.  Misconstruing  the 
text  of  the  Poetics,  they  deduced  from  their  own 
misunderstanding  of  the  philosopher  a  code  of 
supposed  artistic  necessity,  which  had  no  basis  in 
the  nature  of  things.  They  succeeded  in  getting 
recognition  for  a  set  of  rules  which  Corneille,  while 
submitting  to  them  in  theory,  was  obliged  to  dis- 
regard in  practice,  and  which  were  of  such  stringent 
logic  as  to  convince  Voltaire  and  Frederick  the  Great 
that  Shakespeare  was  a  barbarian  and  a  bungler. 

Criticism,  in  my  opinion,  is  only  of  value  so  long 
as  it  follows  an  inductive  method.  As  I  said  in  my 
inaugural  lecture,  the  sole  authorities  in  the  art  of 
poetry  are  the  great  classical  poets  of  the  world :  the 
business  of  the  critic  is  to  infer  from  their  work  the 
true  means  of  producing  lasting  pleasure.  I  propose, 
therefore,  in  a  series  of  lectures  to  discuss  the  question 
of  life  in  poetry,  regarding  it  in  three  aspects :  ( 1 ) 
Poetical  Conception ;  (2)  Poetical  Expression ;  (3) 
Poetical  Decadence.  In  my  present  lecture  I  shall 
endeavour  to  trace  the  course  of  an  imaginative 
creation  from  the  moment  when  a  design  first  begins 
to  shape  itself  in  a  poet's  brain.  I  shall  ask  to  be 
allowed  to  make  but  one  assumption — one,  indeed, 
which  has  been  regarded  as  self-evidently  true  by  all 


i-ECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  39 

sound  critics  from  the  time  of  Aristotle — namely, 
that  the  end  of  the  fine  arts  is  to  produce  enduring 
pleasure  for  the  imagination.  With  the  help  of  this 
I  shall  then  attempt  to  frame  a  working  definition 
of  poetry,  and  shall  inquire  from  the  nature  of  the 
art  what  must  necessarily  be  its  fundamental  prin- 
ciples. These  I  shall  verify  by  applying  them  to 
poems  which  are  allowed  to  have  attained  the 
position  of  classics,  as  well  as  to  others  which,  after 
enjoying  a  temporary  popularity,  have  fallen  into 
neglect.  Finally,  after  establishing  my  conclusions, 
I  shall  consider  what  practical  bearing  they  have  on 
the  production  of  poetry  in  our  own  day. 

With  respect  to  life  in  poetry,  as  distinguished 
from  life  in  the  other  fine  arts,  it  is  plain,  in  the 
first  place,  that  poetry  takes  a  distinct  way  of  its 
own  to  produce  pleasure.  It  proceeds  differently 
from  music,  because  that  is  an  art  which  appeals  to 
the  emotions  through  the  ear,  and,  except  when  it 
is  joined  to  words,  seldom  raises  ideas  and  images 
in  the  mind.  It  differs  again  from  painting  and 
sculpture,  for,  though  these  can  suggest  ideas  and 
images,  they  can  do  so  only  through  the  associations 
of  sight.  Painting  and  sculpture  can  represent 
movement  and  action,  but  their  representation  is 
limited  to  a  single  moment  of  time.  For  instance, 
in  Raphael's  great  picture  of  the  Fire  in  the  Borgo, 
there  is  an  extraordinary  suggestion  of  life  and 
passion.  You  see  a  mother  just  handing  her  child 
out  of  a  window  ;  a  young  man  in  the  act  of  letting 
himself  drop  from  a  roof ;  other  persons  energetically 


40  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


striving  tx>  save  their  goods  from  the  flames ;  and 
others  again,  whose  property  has  been  consumed, 
prostrated  with  despair.  But  the  infant  is  never 
actually  rescued ;  the  young  man  remains  suspended ; 
we  know  not  how  much  salvage  is  effected,  or  what 
becomes  of  the  homeless  refugees. 

Another  aspect  of  this  arrested  life  in  painting 
and  sculpture  is  expressed  in  Keats's  fine  Ode  on  a 
Grecian  Urn  : 

Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 

Are  sweeter  :  therefore,  ye  soft  pipes,  play  on  ; 

Not  to  the  sensual  ear,  but  more  endeared 

Pipe  to  the  spirit  ditties  of  no  tone. 

Fair  youth,  beneath  the  trees  thou  canst  not  leave 
Thy  song,  nor  ever  can  these  leaves  be  bare ; 
Bold  lover,  never,  never  canst  thou  kiss, 

Though  winning  near  the  goal — yet  do  not  grieve  : 
She  cannot  fade,  though  thou  hast  not  thy  bliss : 
For  ever  wilt  thou  love,  and  she  be  fair. 

Poetry  can  represent  ideal  life  of  this  kind,  but 
it  can  do  much  more.  It  can  call  up  before  the 
mind,  by  a  kind  of  inward  painting,  images  of  out- 
ward forms  which  the  act  of  sight  has  stored  in  the 
memory ;  and  though  some  critics,  like  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  have  thought  that  poetry  can  be  dissociated 
from  metre,  still  the  practice  of  the  greatest  poets 
shows  that  it  is  the  nature  of  the  art  to  produce 
pleasure  by  means  akin  to  music.  Beyond  this,  how- 
ever, poetry,  working  through  language,  can  free  itself, 
as  painting  and  sculpture  cannot,  from  the  limitations 
of  time  and  space,  and  can  represent  in  words,  what 
music  cannot,  a  series  of  connected  actions. 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  41 

But  this  is  not  all.  Poetry  differs  from  its  sister 
arts  not  only  in  the  variety  of  its  means  but  in  the 
diversity  of  its  effects.  Since  it  reaches  its  ends 
through  instruments  so  complex  as  thought  and 
language,  it  comprehends  many  styles  ;  unlike  paint- 
ing, for  example,  in  which  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
admits  only  one  legitimate  method ;  insisting  — 
whether  rightly  or  wrongly  I  do  not  presume  to  ques- 
tion— that  the  single  aim  of  every  great  painter  must 
be  the  Historic  or  grand  style.  In  poetry,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  Epic,  the  Dramatic,  the  Ethical  or  Satirical 
modes  of  composition  are  all  distinct :  each  is  capable 
of  producing  a  different  kind  of  pleasure  :  and  any 
attempt  to  introduce  the  style  proper  to  one  depart- 
ment into  another  would  be  a  sign  of  incapacity  in 
the  poet.  Suited  to  different  moods  of  the  mind, 
these  various  kinds  of  poetry  adapt  themselves  to 
the  wants  of  opposite  conditions  of  society.  Satire, 
that  peculiarly  Eoman  form  of  poetry,  found  a 
congenial  soil  in  the  manners  of  the  City  under  the 
Empire,  when  the  epic,  dramatic,  and  lyric  motives  of 
composition  all  languished.  In  England,  after  the 
Restoration,  the  questions  which  most  strongly 
stirred  men's  imaginations  were  of  a  religious  and 
political  kind.  To  satisfy  this  taste  the  representa- 
tive poet  of  the  day  produced  works  like  Absalom 
and  Achitoi^hel,  The  Medal,  and  Reliyio  Laici, 
defending  his  style  on  the  plea  of  its  fitness  for 
his  artistic  needs : 

And  this  unpolished  rugged  verse  I  cliosc, 
As  fittest  for  discourse  and  nearest  prose. 


42  LIFE  IN  POETRY 

You  will  observe  that  Dryden  says  nearest  prose  ; 
not  actually  prose ;  meaning  that  his  style  suited 
his  subject,  and  that  this,  though  akin  to  matter 
usually  treated  in  prose,  had  in  itself  an  element  of 
imagination  and  emotion  which  adapted  it  for 
expression  in  metre.  When  Matthew  Arnold,  look- 
ing to  the  comparatively  matter-of-fact  nature  of 
their  thought,  says  that  Dryden  and  Pope  are  not 
classics  of  our  poetry,  but  classics  of  our  prose,  he 
is  the  victim  of  a  verbal  fallacy.  For  if  the  end 
of  poetry  be  to  produce  enduring  pleasure  for  the 
imagination,  and  if  Dryden  and  Pope,  adopting 
the  usual  machinery  of  poetry,  satisfy  this  end, 
these  writers  cannot  be  denied  a  place  among  our 
poets  merely  because  their  subjects  are  less  imagina- 
tive than  is  the  case  with  metrical  writers  of  another 
kind.  We  may,  I  think,  be  content  to  define  poetry 
as  the  art  which  produces  pleasure  for  the  imagina- 
tion by  imitating  human  actions,  thoughts,  and 
passions,  in  metrical  language.  The  life  of  poetry 
is  in  fact  that  which  is  beautifully  described  by 
Spenser  in  his  Ruins  of  Time : 

For  deeds  do  die  however  nobly  done, 

And  thoughts  of  men  do  as  themselves  decay, 

But  wise  words,  taught  in  numbers  for  to  run, 

Kecorded  by  the  Muses,  live  for  ay, 

Ne  may  with  storming  showers  be  washed  away, 

Ne  bitter-breathing  winds  with  harmful  blast. 

Nor  age,  nor  envy,  may  them  ever  waste. 

Passins:  on  from  our  definition  to  consider  the 
nature  of  Poetical  Conception,  we  have  to  remember 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  43 

that  Fine  Art  does  not,  like  photography,  imitate  real 
Nature,  but  the  idea  of  Nature  existing  in  the  mind. 
Ideal  Life  is  subject  to  laws  of  its  own,  and  Horace, 
in  his  Ars  Poetica,  says  very  justly :  "  Painters  and 
poets  have  always  been  allowed  a  just  freedom  of 
conception :  this  is  an  admitted  fact,  and  the  critic 
grants  the  indulgence  that  the  poet  asks."  All  that 
the  poet  is  required  to  do  is  to  create  a  perfect 
illusion  ;  to  produce  what  Aristotle  calls  to  indavov, 
the  effect  of  poetic  probability ;  or,  in  other  words, 
that  idea  of  unity  which  is  the  essential  condition  of 
organic  life.^  When  he  is  successful  in  doing  this 
he  reaches  the  standard  of  the  true  poet  described  by 
Pope  in  one  of  his  Imitations  of  Horace : 

'Tis  he  can  give  my  heart  a  thousand  pains, 
Can  make  me  feel  each  passion  that  he  feigns  ; 
Enrage,  compose,  with  more  than  magic  art ; 
With  pity  and  with  terror  rend  my  heart ; 
And  snatch  me  through  the  earth  or  in  the  air, 
To  Thebes  or  Athens,  when  he  will  and  where. 

To  produce  this  effect  of  organic  ideal  life  is  diffi- 
cult, because  in  the  mind  Reason  acts  against  Imagina- 
tion, and  because,  in  critical  ages,  men  apply  to  poetic 
inventions  standards  of  judgment  proper  only  to 
scientific  analysis.  Aristotle,  for  example,  cites  some 
of  the  criticisms  passed  in  his  day  even  on  the  Iliad. 
Such  and  such  a  thing  in  the  poem,  said  one,  was 
contrary  to  fact ;  something  else,  said  another,  was 
impossible  by  the  laws  of  Nature;  this  and  that  a  third 

'   ir/xSj    re   yap  ttjv    trolrjffw   aip(TijjT(ftov    TriGavdv   dSCyaTOv    i)   diriOavof   Kal 
Swardv.     Aristotle,  Foetics,  xw.  17. 


44  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


declared  to  be  opposed  to  experience.  But,  as  the 
philosopher  shows,  these  objections  were  all  ill- 
grounded,  because — such  is  his  vigorous  phrase — 
"Homer  tells  lies  as  he  ought." ^  He  is  not  to  be 
judged  by  the  laws  of  material  Nature ;  his  concep- 
tion is  poetically  true.  Our  imagination  moves  easily 
through  his  ideal  world.  We  readily  grant  him  his 
whole  stock  of  marvellous  hypothesis — gods,  giants, 
celestial  arms,  and  talking  horses — because  w^e  feel  that 
it  proceeds  from  a  living  source  in  his  own  mind.  Yet, 
if  a  sophisticated  poet  were  to  force  himself  to  invent 
such  things,  merely  to  gratify  our  taste  for  the  wonder- 
ful, it  is  certain  that  every  intelligent  reader  would 
reject  his  conception  with  indignation  and  disgust. 

In  every  genuinely  inspired  poetical  conception 
there  are,  as  Aristotle  and  Horace  both  tell  us,  two 
elements  of  life,  one  universal,  the  other  individual. 
The  universal  element  is  the  idea  of  the  subject, 
whatever  it  may  be,  as  it  exists  in  an  undeveloped 
state  in  the  human  mind ;  the  individual  element  is 
the  particular  form  and  character  which  is  impressed 
upon  the  subject  by  the  creative  genius  of  the  poet. 
As  regards  the  process  of  creation  by  which  these  two 
elements  are  fused  into  organic  life,  we  cannot  do 
better  than  attend  to  what  is  said  by  Horace,  a  poet 
who  attempted  various  styles  of  poetry  and  succeeded 
in  them  all.  First,  says  Horace,  there  must  be  com- 
plete union  between  the  imagination  of  the  poet  and 
the  subject  he  selects.  "  All  you  who  wTite  " — such  is 
his  advice  in  his  Ars  Poetica — "  choose  your  subject  in 

^  Aristotle,  Poetics,  xxv. 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  45 

accordance  with  your  powers  ;  turn  over  in  your  mind 
what  your  shoulders  can  bear  and  what  they  cannot. 
The  poet  whose  subject  is  completely  assimilated  to 
his  genius  will  not  fail  in  point  of  eloquence  and  lucid 
order."  Every  word  of  this  advice  is  pregnant  with 
thought.  There  is  a  modern  school  of  poets  which 
insists  that  all  poetic  creation  is  the  work  solely  of 
the  poet's  mind  :  form,  they  tell  us,  is  everything, 
matter  nothing.  But  here  you  have  one  of  the  classic 
poets  of  the  world  declaring  that  a  large  portion  of 
the  life,  and  even  of  the  form,  of  every  poem  is  con- 
tained germinally  in  the  subject  matter.  Artistic 
creation  is  not  the  mere  act  of  the  artist's  will ;  the 
first  movement  of  inspiration  comes  to  him  from  out- 
side ;  hence  the  solemn  invocations  of  the  greatest 
poets  for  divine  aid  in  their  undertakings ;  as,  for 
example,  at  the  opening  of  Paradise  Lost  : 

And  chiefly  thou,  0  Spirit,  who  dost  prefer. 
Before  all  temples,  the  upright  heart  and  pure, 
Instruct  me,  for  thou  knowest ;  thou  from  the  first 
Wast  present,  and,  Avith  mighty  wings  outspread, 
Dovelike,  satst  brooding  o'er  the  vast  abyss, 
And  madst  it  pregnant ;  what  in  me  is  dark 
Illumine  ;  what  is  low  raise  and  support, 
That  to  the  height  of  this  great  argument 
I  may  assert  Eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men. 

And  so  too  Dante,  in  the  quaint  but  impressive 
appeal  to  Apollo  in  his  Paradiso  :  "  Divine  Virtue,  if 
thou  wilt  but  inspire  me  to  make  manifest  the  shadow 
of  the  blessed  realm  which  is  stamped  upon  my  brain. 


46  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


thou  wilt  see  me  come  to  the  tree  that  thou  lovest, 
and  crown  myself  there  with  the  leaves  of  which  my 
matter  and  thou  will  make  me  worthy."^     The  reality 
and   power   of    this    inspiration    from    without    are 
attested  by  the  fact  that,  in  many  of  the  great  poems 
of  the  world,  the  form  appropriate  to  the  subject  has 
not  been  stamped  at  once  upon  the  poet's  conception. 
You  will  remember  that  Paradise  Lost  first  suggested 
itself  to  Milton  in  the  form  of  a  miracle  play,  modelled 
after  the  Greek  drama,  with  the  accompaniment  of  a 
chorus.     In  the  execution  of  this  design  he  proceeded 
some  way,  and  wrote,  among  other  passages,  Satan's 
speech   to  the  Sun,  which   is  now  embodied  in  the 
Fourth  Book  of  Paradise  Lost.      Long  meditation 
and  fresh    inspirations   from   without  were  required 
before  the  poet  saw  why  the  dramatic  form  was  un- 
fitted to  his  subject,  and  in  what  mould  poetic  neces- 
sity demanded  that  his  conception  should  come  into 
being. 

Not  very  different  was  Scott's  experience  in  the 
conception  of  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel.  A  lady 
asked  him  to  write  an  imitation  of  an  ancient  ballad. 
Then,  says  Lockhart  in  his  very  interesting  narrative  : 
"  Sir  John  Stoddart's  casual  recitation  of  Coleridge's 
unfinished  Christahel  had  fixed  the  music  of  that 
noble  fragment  in  his  memory  ;  and  it  occurs  to  him 
that,  by  throwing  the  story  of  Gilpin  Horner  into 
somewhat  similar  cadence,  he  might  produce  such  an 
echo  of  the  later  metrical  romance  as  would  seem  to 
connect  his  conclusion  of  the  primitive  Sir  Tristrem 

'  Dante,  Paradiso,  i.  22-27. 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  47 

with  the  imitation  of  the  popular  ballad  in  the  Grey 
Brother  and  Eve  of  St.  John.  A  single  scene  of 
feudal  festivity  in  the  Hall  of  Branksome,  disturbed 
by  some  pranks  of  a  nondescript  goblin,  was  probably 
all  that  he  contemplated ;  but  his  accidental  confine- 
ment in  the  midst  of  a  volunteer  camp  gave  him 
leisure  to  meditate  his  theme  to  the  sound  of  the 
bugle  ;  and  suddenly  there  flashes  on  him  the  idea  of 
extending  his  simple  outline  so  as  to  embrace  a  vivid 
panorama  of  that  old  Border  life  of  war  and  tumult 
and  all  earnest  passions  with  which  his  researches  on 
the  minstrelsy  had  by  degrees  fed  his  imagination, 
until  every  the  minutest  feature  had  been  taken  home 
and  realised  with  unconscious  intensity  of  sympathy, 
so  that  he  had  won  for  himself  in  the  past  another 
world  hardly  less  familiar  or  complete  than  the  pre- 
sent. Erskine  or  Cranstoun  suggests  that  he  would 
"  do  well  to  divide  the  poem  into  cantos,  and  prefix  to 
each  of  them  a  motto  explanatory  of  the  action,  after 
the  fashion  of  Spenser  in  the  Fairy  Queen.  He 
pauses  for  a  moment  and  the  happiest  conception  of 
the  frame- work  of  a  picturesque  narrative  that  ever 
occurred  to  any  poet,  one  that  Homer  might  have 
envied,  the  creation  of  the  ancient  Harper,  starts 
to  life.  By  such  steps  did  the  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel  grow  out  of  the  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish 
Border."  ^ 

But  besides  this  instinctive,  unconscious  union 
between  the  imagination  of  the  poet  and  his  external 
subject,   the  poet's  conception,  when   born  into  the 

'  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  vol.  ii.  p.  24  (1837). 


48  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


world,  must  be  qualified  to  live  in  the  imagination  of 
his  audience.  On  this  point  too  let  us  hear  Horace. 
"  It  is  difficult,"  says  he,  "  to  clothe  universal  abstract 
ideas  with  individual  life  and  character,  and  you 
would  do  better  to  ground  a  play  on  some  story  as 
old  and  familiar  as  the  Iliad,  than  to  seek  credit  for 
originality  by  representing  something  that  nobody 
has  heard  or  thought  of  before."  Yes,  and  why  so  ? 
Because  as  the  subject  matter  fitted  for  art  exists  in 
embryo  in  the  mind  in  general,  and  not  merely  in  the 
mind  of  the  poet,  the  poet  must  satisfy  those  condi- 
tions of  ideal  life  which  prepare  the  imagination  of 
the  audience  for  the  reception  of  his  thought.  If  he 
attempts  to  conjure  up  an  ideal  situation  entirely  out 
of  his  own  consciousness,  it  is  almost  certain  that  his 
creation  will  have  a  lifeless  or  mechanical  appearance, 
or  will  provoke  an  instinctive  opposition  in  the 
reader's  sense  of  probability.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  seeks  to  vitalise  the  inorganic  matter  already  exist- 
ing in  general  conception,  his  audience  will,  as  it  were, 
conspire  with  him  in  the  act  of  creation,  and  the 
general  pleasure  his  work  will  arouse  will  insure  for 
it  immortality.  For  this  reason  the  greater  Greek 
dramatists  grounded  their  plays  on  the  popular 
mythology,  while  the  Elizabethan  poets  took  their 
plots,  as  a  rule,  from  novels  or  histories  with  which 
their  audience  were  already  familiar. 

AVe  conclude,  then,  with  Horace  that  the  secret  of 
life  in  poetry  lies  in  the  power  to  give  individual  form 
to  universal  ideas  of  nature  adapted  for  expression  in 
any  of  the  recognised  classes  of  metrical  composition. 


\ 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  49 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  question  from  another  side, 
and  apply  this  law  to  poems  whose  position  has  been 
finally  settled  by  the  judgment  of  mankind.  Why, 
for  example,  is  the  Iliad  so  full  of  life  ?  Mainly 
because  the  subject  of  the  poem  was  very  much  alive 
in  Homer's  own  imagination :  everything  in  it  seems 
to  be  of  a  piece,  and  to  be  said  naturally  and  without 
conscious  effort.  It  must,  however,  also  be  admitted 
that  Homer  enjoyed  an  immense  advantage  over  all 
his  successors  by  starting  in  almost  complete  unity 
with  his  theme.  When  he  composed  the  Iliad  the 
poetical  mode  of  conceiving  things  was  the  natural 
mode  of  conception ;  so  that  we  may  almost  say  the 
image  of  the  poem  pressed  itself  on  his  mind  from 
the  outside  ready  made,  and  all  that  he  had  to  do 
was  to  find  an  adequate  mould  for  the  expression. 
In  his  verse  the  commonest  objects  and  actions — a 
ship  being  rowed  over  the  sea  ;  a  banquet ;  a  sacrifice 
— are  described  in  a  manner  at  once  grand  and  simple  ; 
not,  I  imagine,  merely  because  Homer  was  a  great 
poet,  but  because,  in  his  age,  almost  everything  was 
conceived  as  having  a  divine  life  of  its  own.  Inability 
to  conceive  of  Nature  in  the  same  spirit  of  childlike 
poetry  extorted  from  Wordsworth  his  passionate 
cry  of  regret : 

Great  God  !  I  had  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  out-worn, 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn, 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  l)lo\v  his  wreatht-d  horn. 


50  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


As  regards  the  individual  element  in  his  poem, 
therefore — the  union,  that  is  to  say,  between  the 
poet's  imagination  and  his  subject  —  Homer  had 
everything  in  his  favour.  What  is  to  be  said,  how- 
ever, of  the  union  between  his  imagination  and  the 
imagination  of  his  audience  ?  Think  how  much 
there  is  in  the  Iliad  to  militate  against  the  pro- 
duction of  the  desired  effect !  A  scheme  of  theology 
which  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago  was  repudi- 
ated by  the  philosopher ;  a  view  of  Nature  which  is 
to-day  incredible  to  the  schoolboy ;  a  representation 
of  warfare  which  must  seem  ridiculous  to  the  soldier ; 
and  a  recital  of  methods  of  killing  and  w^ounding 
which,  since  the  invention  of  firearms,  has  lost  its 
interest  even  for  the  surgeon.  What  is  it,  then,  in 
Homer's  poetry  that  produces  such  unequalled  plea- 
sure ?  It  is  the  element  of  the  Universal.  Nowhere 
else,  except  in  Shakespeare,  w^ill  you  meet  with  so 
many  characters  which  are  immediately  perceived  to 
be  living  imitations  of  mankind  ;  so  many  sentiments 
which  at  once  move  the  affections;  so  many  situations  of 
elemental  interest  and  pathos ; — nowhere  else  will  you 
find  the  images  of  things  adapting  themselves  so  readily 
to  the  movement  of  verse  whose  majestic  roll  seems 
animated  by  the  very  life  of  Nature,  and  yet  is  found 
on  examination  to  be  the  product  of  idealising  Art. 

In  the  ^Eneid  we  perceive  the  case  to  be  quite 
different.  Here  we  have  evidently  a  sharp  separation 
between  the  subject  and  the  mind  of  the  poet,  and  we 
understand  that  Virgil's  matter  must  have  been  long 
meditated,   assimilated,   and  transmuted,  before  the 


.  1  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  51 

p6em  was  ready  to  be  born  into  the  world.  The 
hero  of  the  JEneid  is,  comparatively  speaking,  a  poor 
creature  ;  the  sentiments  and  manners  represented  in 
the  poem,  far  from  making  us  breathe  a  naturally  heroic 
atmosphere,  provoke  question  and  criticism ;  many  of 
the  incidents  appear  improbable,  being  in  fact  trans- 
ferred from  Homer,  and  having  lost  some  of  their  life 
in  the  passage.  We  feel  through  the  last  six  books  of 
the  epic  that  the  poet  is  only  carrying  on  the  action 
because  the  machinery  of  his  work  requires  him  to 
do  so.  Nevertheless  from  the  very  first  the  yEneicl 
has  been  alive  ;  it  is  alive  still.  What  is  the  secret  of 
its  vitality  ?  Partly,  no  doubt,  the  fact  that  Virgil 
was  able  to  impregnate  his  subject  with  certain 
qualities  of  his  own  nature  in  which  no  poet  has  ever 
equalled  him,  piety,  gravity,  sweetness.  But  partly 
also  the  fact  that  he  has  developed  out  of  his  subject, 
with  unrivalled  art,  the  elements  that  it  contains  of 
the  Universal.  We  know  how  the  y^neid  appeared 
to  Virgil's  contemporaries.  They  hailed  it  as  some- 
thing greater  than  the  Iliad.  "  Nescio  quid  majus 
nascitur  Iliade,"  said  Propertius ;  and  though  this 
sounds  like  patriotic  exaggeration,  there  is  a  sense 
in  which  it  is  true.  For  the  j^neid  is  par  excellence 
the  epic  of  Civil  Life.  It  is  the  poem  of  a  Roman, 
having  for  its  theme  the  foundation  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  reflecting  at  every  point  the  majesty 
of  the  Roman  character.  That  was  the  special 
quality  in  it  which  so  deeply  influenced  the  genius 
of  Dante ;  and  wherever  the  civilising  power  of  the 
Roman  Empire  has  been  felt,  that  is,  over  the  whole 


52  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


of  modern  Europe,  there  will  this  element  of  life  in 
the  y^neid  continue  to  produce  sublime  pleasure. 

But  there  is  a  wider,  a  more  human  sense,  in  which 
the  JEneid  may  be  said  to  be  greater  than  the  Iliad, 
and  that  is  in  the  conception  of  the  pathetic.  Not,  of 
course,  that  Homer  is  wanting  in  pathos ;  he  covers 
a  larger  surface  of  the  pathetic  than  Virgil ;  but  at 
certain  points  Virgil  goes  deeper.  His  great  poetical 
principle  is  embodied  in  the  line,  "  Sunt  lacrimae 
rerum  et  mentem  mortalia  tangunt,"  which  a  modern 
poet  has  beautifully  rendered  : 

Tears  waken  tears,  and  honour  honour  brings, 
And  mortal  hearts  are  moved  by  mortal  things.^ 

Inadequate  as  the  character  of  ^neas  is  on  the 
heroic  side,  it  is  exceedingly  human,  and  the  poet 
has  sounded  the  deepest  feelings  of  our  kind  in  the 
description  of  his  hero's  adventures  and  misfortunes. 
The  narrative  of  the  fall  of  Troy,  the  death  of  Dido, 
the  meeting  of  j35neas  and  Anchises  in  the  lower 
world,  the  deaths  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus,  these  things 
will  move  the  hearts  of  men  through  all  time.  Virgil 
in  such  passages  has  individualised  the  Universal ;  his 
images  live  for  ever  in  a  stream  of  verse  as  deep  and 
full  as  Homer's  is  swift  and  brilliant. 

Let  me  now,  by  way  of  contrast,  refer  to  a 
poem  which  having  once  enjoyed  great  popularity 
has  long  passed,  not  indeed  into  oblivion,  but  neglect. 
When  the  Thehais  was  first  published,  we  know  from 
Juvenal  that  it  was  received  with  general  enthusiasm, 

^  F.  W.  Myers,  Classical  Essays,  p.  1 20. 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  53 

and  even  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  reputation  of 
Statins  was  so  great — mainly  no  doubt  on  account 
of  his  legendary  Christianity — that  Dante  assigns 
him  a  place  in  his  Purgatory.  To-day  he  is  known 
only  to  professed  scholars.  Why  ?  If  we  try  to 
realise  the  manner  in  which  the  Tliebais  came  into 
existence  we  shall  be  able  to  account  for  its  literary 
fate.  Statins  so  far  complied  with  Horace's  advice 
in  the  Ars  Poetica  as  to  choose  a  subject  not  less 
well  known  to  his  audience  than  "  the  tale  of  Troy 
divine."  Unfortunately  it  had  no  special  elements 
of  interest  which  could  touch  his  heart  as  a  man 
and  a  Roman  ;  hence  his  subject  never  really  passed 
into  his  own  imagination ;  he  hatched  it,  so  to  speak, 
like  an  artificial  incubator.  Let  us  try  to  watch  him 
composing  the  Fourth  Book,  which  is  much  the 
best  in  the  poem.  Here  his  business  was,  in  some 
way  or  other,  to  conduct  Polynices  and  the  Argive 
army  to  Thebes,  where  Eteocles  had  usurped  the 
government.  Statins  sets  to  work  in  a  style  wdiich 
is  eminently  logical,  and,  in  a  way,  scientific.  He 
starts  his  expedition  with  stir  and  bustle,  and  tells 
us  of  all  the  rumours  which  the  news  of  the  invasion 
set  in  circulation  at  Thebes.  Then  he  appears  to  have 
said  to  himself,  "  Now  what  eff'ect  would  these  rumours 
have  had  on  the  mind  of  Eteocles  ? "  Eteocles  is  con- 
ceived as  a  gloomy  tyrant.  Of  course,  then,  his  bad 
conscience  would  drive  him  to  consult  the  prophet 
Tiresias.  Here  came  a  splendid  opportunity  for  what 
Horace  calls  "a  purple  patch."  Tiresias  practised 
magic  in  a  wood ;   the  wood  must  therefore  be  de- 


54  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


scribed ;  and  described  it  is  with  great  effect,  and 
so  are  the  magical  incantations.  Next  it  is  necessary 
to  learn  the  future  from  Laius,  the  founder  of  the 
ruling  family,  who  must  be  brought  from  the  infernal 
regions  according  to  the  precedent  of  JEneas,  when  he 
went  thither  to  seek  the  spirit  of  Anchises.  Statins 
seems  to  have  thought  within  himself :  "  How  can 
I  have  a  novel  and  effective  other-world  scene,  some- 
thing different  from  Homer's  and  Virgil's  ? "  and 
so  full  is  he  of  this  idea,  that  he  puts  it  into 
the  mouth  of  his  imaginary  characters.  Tiresias, 
being  blind,  has  to  be  helped  in  his  incantations  by 
his  daughter  Manto,  who,  after  she  has  performed 
the  necessary  rites,  informs  her  father  that  hell  is 
in  view  ;  but,  says  she,  "  what  is  the  use  of  bringing 
up  the  monsters  of  Erebus,  the  idly  raging  Centaurs, 
the  Giants,  and  all  the  rest  of  them  ? "  ^  In  other 
words.  Homer  and  Virgil  have  done  all  this  kind  of 
thing  before.  "  Quite  true,"  observes  the  practical 
prophet,  "everybody  knows  about  the  rebounding  stone 
of  Sisyphus,  and  the  fleeing  waters  of  Tantalus,  and  the 
wheel  of  Ixion :  let  us,  for  a  change,  have  the  spirits 
of  the  wicked  Argives  and  Thebans."  ^  And  accord- 
ingly up  come  these  from  the  nether  world,  one  after 
another,  "  stern  Abas,  and  guilty  Proetus,  and  mild 
Phoroneus,  and  mutilated  Pelops,  and  (Enomaus  all 
bestained  with  cruel  dust."  ^  Laius  appears  the  last, 
and  delivers  himself  of  an  oracle  so  judiciously 
obscure  that,  for  all  the  information  it  affords  his 
hearers,    they   and    the    poet    might    have    spared 

1   Thehais,  iv.  534-536.  ^  Ihid.  537-544.  ^  /^^-^^  589-591. 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  55 

themselves  the  trouble  they  took  to  procure  his 
advice.  Whoever  compares  this  with  the  Sixth  Book 
of  the  JEneid  will  see  the  difference  between  Life 
and  Machinery  in  poetry.  Statius  is  full  of  clever- 
ness and  learning ;  he  is  careful  to  follow  poetical 
precedents ;  but  his  creation  is  not  alive ;  he  himself 
did  not  care  about  it ;  his  Roman  audience  did  not 
care  about  it,  though  they  applauded  it ;  it  is  vain 
therefore  to  expect  an  audience  to  care  about  it  in  the 
nineteenth  century. 

How  admirable  is  the  reasoning  of  Juvenal  in 
the  matter  !  "  These  things,"  he  says  in  substance, 
"  have  no  life.  I  must  have  life  in  my  poetry : 
I  shall  accordingly  wT-ite  Satire,  and  shall  deal  with 
matters  that  really  do  interest  us :  every  sort  of 
human  action  and  passion,  wishes,  fears,  anger, 
pleasure,  joy,  philosophy,  these  are  my  subjects."  ^ 
Hence,  though  he  is  only  a  satirical  poet,  Juvenal, 
having  this  strong  individual  element  in  himself, 
and  the  element  of  the  Universal  in  his  theme,  has 
contrived  to  produce  permanent  pleasure  for  the 
imagination  ;  while  Statius,  with  his  grandiose  subject 
and  his  sounding  verse,  has  fallen  into  neglect. 
Juvenal  makes  us  see,  as  if  they  were  things  of 
to-day,  the  perils  of  the  streets  in  ancient  Rome ;  ' 
the  "  bald  Nero"  and  his  flatterers  in  council  over  their 
turbot ;  ^  the  Trojan-born  aristocracy  cringing  for  the 
rich  parvenu's  doles ;  *  the  bronze  head  of  Sej anus's 
statue  turned  into  pots  and  pans.'' 

'  Juvenal,  H(d.  i.  85-6.  ■  Ihid.  iii.  »  Und.  iv. 

*  Ihld.  i.  99-100.  '-'  IhitL  .\.  01-64. 


56  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


And  when  a  satirist  is  full,  like  Juvenal,  of  universal 
interest,  we  can  listen  to  him  even  though  he  talks 
mainly  of  himself.  Witness  the  opening  of  Pope's 
Epistle  to  Arhuthnot,  where  every  word  seems  to 
throb  and  tingle  with  sensitive  life  : 

Shut,  shut  the  door,  good  John  !  fatigued,  I  said, 
Tie  up  the  knocker,  say  I'm  sick,  I'm  dead. 
The  dog-star  rages,  nay,  'tis  past  a  doubt, 
All  Bedlam  and  Parnassus  is  let  out. 
Fire  in  each  eye,  and  papers  in  each  hand. 
They  rave,  recite,  and  madden  through  the  land. 

And  so  on,  through  all  the  poet's  interviews  with 
his  literary  tormentors,  till  we  reach  the  climax  in 
the  portrait  of  Atticus,  where  universal  truth  lives 
as  lastingly  as  in  the  characters  of  Achilles  and 
Hamlet : 

Peace  to  all  such  !     But  were  there  one  whose  fires 
True  genius  kindles  and  true  fame  inspires ; 
Blest  with  each  talent  and  each  art  to  please, 
And  born  to  write,  converse,  and  live  with  ease ; 
Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear  like  the  Turk  no  brother  near  the  throne ; 
View  him  ^vith  scornful  yet  with  jealous  eyes. 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caused  himself  to  rise ; 
Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer. 
And,  without  sneering,  teach  the  rest  to  sneer ; 
Willing  to  wound,  and  yet  afraid  to  strike, 
Just  hint  a  fault,  and  hesitate  dislike ; 
Alike  reserved  to  blame  and  to  command, 
A  timorous  foe  and  a  suspicious  friend  ; 
Dreading  e'en  fools,  by  flatterers  besieged. 
And  so  obliging  that  he  ne'er  obliged  ; 
Like  Cato  give  his  little  senate  laws, 
And  sit  attentive  to  his  own  applause  ; 


POETICAL  CONCEPTION  57 


While  wits  and  Templars  every  sentence  raise, 
And  wonder  with  a  foolish  face  of  praise  : 
Who  but  must  laugh  if  such  a  man  there  be  1 
Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he  ? 

Even  in  lyric  poetry,  which  seems  above  all  other 
forms  of  the  art  to  be  the  vehicle  of  individual 
feeling,  if  the  verse  is  to  have  enduring  life,  the  uni- 
versal must  be  present  either  in  the  simplicity  of  the 
emotion  or  in  the  common  interest  of  the  theme.  No 
better  illustration  of  this  truth  can  be  found  than 
Gray's  Elegy,  a  composition  which  has  perhaps  pro- 
duced more  general  pleasure  than  any  in  our  literature. 
Take  the  last  line  of  the  first  stanza  :  "  And  leaves 
the  world  to  darkness  and  to  me,"  where  two  of  the 
most  abstract  words  in  the  language  are  combined 
with  the  most  personal.  Or  again,  the  closing  stanza, 
in  which  the  epitaph  on  the  individual  is  brought 
to  a  climax  in  the  most  universal  idea  that  the  human 
mind  can  conceive  : 

No  further  seek  his  merits  to  disclose, 

Or  draw  his  frailties  from  their  dread  abode, 

(There  they  alike  in  trembling  liope  repose) 
The  bosom  of  his  Father  and  his  CJod. 

Difficile  est  proprie  communia  dicerc.  Difficult 
indeed !  But  to  overcome  the  difficulty  is  the 
triumph  of  art.  And  here  the  triumph  is  complete. 
How  simple  and  obvious  are  all  the  reflections,  and 
yet  how  individual  they  seem  in  the  form  in  which 
the  poet  presents  them  !  A  single  familiar  image  is 
selected  as  the  centre  of  a  group  of  truths  which 
every  man  acknowledges,  and,  as  a  rule,  forgets ;  each 


58  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


stanza  seems  to  condense  in  words  the  experience  of 
human  society ;  and  breathes  in  its  solemn  harmony 
the  catholic  teaching  of  the  grave. 

If  then  we  are  justified  in  believing  this  law  of  life 
in  poetry  to  be  what  we  have  described  it,  we  may 
draw  some  practical  conclusions  from  it  with  regard 
to  the  poetry  of  our  own  day.  For  is  not  one  of  the 
most  striking  characteristics  in  modern  poetical  con- 
ception the  exaggeration  of  the  individual  element  and 
the  neglect  of  the  universal  ?  Many  of  the  spiritual 
forces  in  our  society — notably  reaction  from  material- 
ism, vulgarity,  commonplace — impel  the  imagination 
towards  a  state  of  transcendental  monasticism,  thrust- 
ing the  mind  inward  upon  itself,  and  urging  it  to  the 
contemplation  of  its  own  ideas  without  considering 
them  in  relation  to  the  ideas  of  others.  Poetical  con- 
ception so  formed  will,  by  its  own  innate  force,  command 
attention  and  respect  from  those  whose  spiritual  ex- 
perience has  been  in  any  way  similar,  and  yet,  as  it 
has  been  framed  without  reference  to  the  wants  of 
human  nature  at  large,  will  necessarily  lack  the 
main  element  of  enduring  life.  This  is  the  danger 
that  in  my  opinion  threatens  the  position  of  one  of 
the  most  eminent  metrical  composers  of  our  own 
generation  ;  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  refer  to  Robert 
Browning.  No  one  who  is  capable  of  appreciating 
genius  will  refuse  to  admire  the  powers  of  this  poet, 
the  extent  of  his  sympathy  and  interest  in  external 
things,  the  boldness  of  his  invention,  the  energy  of 
his  analysis,  the  audacity  of  his  experiments.  But 
so  absolutely  does  he  exclude  all  consideration  for  the 


LECT.  I  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  59 

reader  from  his  choice  of  subject,  so  arbitrarily,  in  his 
treatment  of  his  themes,  does  he  compel  his  audience 
to  place  themselves  at  his  own  point  of  view,  that  the 
life  of  his  art  depends  entirely  on  his  individuality. 
Should  future  generations  be  less  inclined  than  our 
own  to  surrender  their  imaginations  to  his  guidance, 
he  will  not  be  able  to  appeal  to  them  through  that 
element  of  life  which  lies  in  the  Universal. 

If  it  is  an  error  to  look  for  the  life  of  poetry  ex- 
clusively in  the  mind  of  the  poet,  it  is  no  less  an  error 
to  derive  its  sources  from  the  current  tastes  of  the 
people.  What  is  universal  is  always  popular  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word ;  but  what  is  popular  is  not 
necessarily  universal.  Yet  the  modern  poet  is  under 
a  strong  temptation  to  adapt  his  conceptions  to  the 
fashion  of  the  moment.  Modern  invention  and 
science  occupy  the  imagination  with  a  dissolving 
panorama  of  passing  interests ;  and  to  embody  these 
in  a  striking  form  is  the  proper  end  of  the  art  of 
journalism.  The  ability  and  success  with  which  the 
journalist  discharges  his  functions  naturally  excite 
emulation  among  those  who  practise  the  fine  arts. 
They  imitate  his  methods.  Hence  they  are  led  to 
Realism  in  the  choice  of  subject,  Impressionism, 
Literary  Paradox,  and  all  those  other  short  cuts  in  art 
through  which  seekers  after  novelty  attempt  to  dis- 
cover nine-days  wonders  for  the  imagination.  By 
the  very  hypothesis  of  fine  art  such  methods  must 
necessarily  be  fallacious  ;  because,  when  the  temporary 
conditions  to  which  they  owe  their  being  pass  away, 
the  pleasure  they  excite  perishes  with  them. 


6o  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


The  abiding  life  of  poetry  must  be  looked  for  far 
beneath  the  surface  of  society :  it  should  be  the  aim 
of  the  poet  first  to  divine  the  true  character  of  his 
age,  as  distinct  from  the  shows  and  illusions  of  things, 
and  then  to  discover  which  of  the  great  moulds  of 
poetry  corresponds  most  closely  with  the  nature  of  his 
thought.  This  is  a  truth  written  on  every  page  of 
classic  English  poetry.  In  the  reign  of  Elizabeth 
the  life  of  the  nation  had  its  centre  in  the  Crown, 
and  poetical  energy  found  its  natural  expression  in 
the  drama.  The  eighteenth  century  was  an  age  of 
aristocracy  and  philosophic  thought ;  accordingly  the 
characteristic  poetry  of  that  era  was  ethical  or  elegiac. 
With  the  French  Revolution  began  the  great  demo- 
cratic movement  which  has  prevailed  for  a  hundred 
years,  and  from  that  time  to  this  the  dominant 
note  in  poetry  has  been  lyrical. 

I  think  that  one  difficulty  in  the  way  of  forming 
a  poetic  conception  of  Nature  and  Society  in  our  own 
day  arises  from  our  adhering  too  tenaciously  to  a 
poetical  tradition  which  no  longer  corresponds  with 
the  life  and  reality  of  things.  Poetry,  like  politics,  is 
an  outward  mode  of  expressing  the  active  principle  of 
social  life,  and  for  three  generations  the  master-spirit 
in  social  action  has  been  Liberty.  In  politics  we 
have  seen  Liberty  embodying  itself  in  all  that  we 
understand  by  the  word  Democracy ;  sweeping  away 
privilege,  test,  restriction ;  widening  the  basis  of 
government ;  wakening  the  energies  of  free  thought ; 
shaking  the  foundations  of  faith  and  authority.  In 
poetry  the  same  principle  has  found  utterance  in  the 


LECT.  1  POETICAL  CONCEPTION  6i 

varied  emotions  we  comprehend  under  the  name  of 
Romance.  Romance  was  heard  in  the  voice  of  Words- 
worth sending  out  his  thought  into  the  heart  of  Nature; 
in  the  voice  of  Byron  rebellious  against  the  laws  of 
Society  ;  in  the  voice  of  Shelley  dreaming  of  the  desti- 
nies of  humanity ;  in  the  voice  of  Tennyson  penetrating 
the  depths  and  intricacies  of  private  sorrow.  For  uni- 
versal conceptions  such  as  these  Romance  has  been  the 
fitting  vehicle  of  expression.  But  alike  in  politics  and 
in  poetry,  the  productive  power  of  Liberty  seems  to 
have  reached  its  natural  limits.  Can  Democracy,  apart 
from  hereditary  Monarchy,  solve  the  problems  it  has 
itself  created  ?  civilise  the  swarming  populations  of 
the  city  ?  bind  the  young  and  vigorous  colony  more 
closely  to  the  venerable  Mother  Country?  charm 
away  the  demon  of  social  envy  ?  curb  the  fury  of 
political  faction?  Or  is  Romance  the  poetical  form 
that  can  most  fitly  reflect  those  scientific  ideas  of 
Nature  and  Society  which  press  so  powerfully  on  the 
modern  imagination  ?  It  is  just  because  Romance  is 
unable  to  do  this  that  the  school  of  poetry  which  has 
adhered  most  faithfully  to  the  romantic  tradition  now 
sounds  in  its  art  the  note  of  lyric  pessimism. 

There  is  surely  an  analogy  in  the  tasks  that  lie 
respectively  before  the  modern  statesman  and  the 
modern  poet.  It  is  the  part  of  the  one,  rising  above 
the  pettinesses  of  party,  to  lead,  to  construct,  to 
consolidate  in  an  imperial  spirit.  Not  very  different 
should  be  the  aim  of  poetry.  The  romantic  poet 
regards  himself  as  "  the  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day": 
is  it,  however,  just  to  charge  the  age  with  emptiness 


62  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


merely  because  it  affords  no  materials  fitted  for  ex- 
pression in  a  particular  poetical  mould  ?  The  art  of 
poetry  has  many  mansions ;  and  it  does  not  follow 
that,  if  one  mode  of  conceiving  Nature  has  become 
trite  and  mechanical,  the  resources  of  Nature  herself 
are  exhausted.  Sound  reasoning  would  seem  rather 
to  point  to  the  conclusion  that,  since  the  subjective 
and  lyrical  forms  of  poetry  languish,  the  sources  of 
life  are  rather  to  be  sought  on  the  objective  side,  and 
in  the  dramatic,  ethical,  and  satiric  forms  of  the  art. 

But  perhaps  to  speculate  precisely  on  this  point  is 
to  fall  into  the  very  error  of  academic  criticism  which 
we  started  with  condemning.  It  will  be  best  to  con- 
clude with  reiterating  the  truth  that,  while  the  force 
of  individual  liberty  and  genius  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  inspire  poetic  conception  with  the  breath  of 
life,  obedience  to  the  law  of  the  Universal  in  Nature 
is  no  less  needful,  if  the  life  thus  generated  is  to  be 
enduring. 


II 

POETICAL  EXPRESSION 

Experience  shows  me  that,  in  England,  it  is  unsafe 
to  suppose  that  the  most  elementary  truths  of  criticism 
will  be  accepted  as  self-evident,  or  that  the  most 
familiar  terms  can  be  left  without  explanation.  In 
opening  this  series  of  lectures  on  "  Life  in  Poetry," 
I  began,  as  I  was  bound  to  do,  with  a  definition.  I 
said  that  "  Poetry  was  the  art  which  produces  pleasure 
for  the  imagination  by  imitating  human  actions, 
thoughts,  and  passions  in  metrical  language."  Since 
poetry  had  been  regarded  as  an  imitative  art  by  a 
hundred  well-known  critics  from  Aristotle  down- 
wards, and  since  not  only  Aristotle,  but  such  modern 
and  Christian  critics  as  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge, 
had  agreed  that  the  end  of  poetry  was  to  produce 
pleasure  for  the  imagination,  I  fondly  hoped  that 
what  I  called  a  "working"  definition  might  pass 
without  argument.  But  what  happened  ?  A  critic 
in  a  weekly  paper  of  high  standing  supposed  that  by 
using  the  word  "  imitation "  in  relation  to  poetry  I 
must  necessarily  mean  the  photographic  reproduction 
of  external  objects,  and  that  the   word  "  pleasure " 


64  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


must  by  implication  carry  with  it  some  low  and 
materialistic  sense.  Reasoning  on  this  hypothesis,  he 
contrived,  in  the  first  place,  to  misinterpret  the 
argument  in  my  lecture  to  an  extent  which,  in  my 
vanity,  I  had  hoped  to  be  impossible,  and,  further, 
to  convince  other  people,  as  appeared  from  the 
correspondence  which  ensued,  that  I  was  not  only  an 
ignorant  but  an  immoral  person. 

As  I  shall  need  my  definition  for  the  purposes  of 
my  present  lecture,  let  me  say  at  starting  that  I 
regard  poetry  as  a  fine  art,  and  therefore  subject  to 
the  operation  of  laws  which,  like  those  of  the  other  fine 
arts,  are  capable  of  explanation  ;  that  I  call  it  an  imita- 
tive art  because  its  function  is  to  find  beautiful  forms 
for  the  expression  of  ideas  existing  universally,  but 
embryonically,  in  the  human  imagination  ;  that  while 
I  consider  the  end  of  poetry,  as  of  all  the  fine  arts,  to 
be,  to  produce  pleasure  for  the  imagination,  this  idea 
of  pleasure  includes  rapture,  enthusiasm,  even  pain  of 
the  kind  intended  by  Aristotle,  when  he  says  that 
Tragedy  effects  a  purgation  of  Pity  and  Terror  by 
means  of  those  passions.  I  must  apologise  to  my 
present  audience  for  an  explanation  which  they  will 
probably  find  superfluous,  but  as  I  desire  to  make 
my  argument  as  clear  and  convincing  as  is  possible 
from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  it  is  best  to  proceed 
by  the  ordinary  course  of  dialectic. 

My  last  lecture  was  devoted  to  an  investigation 
of  the  law  of  poetical  conception,  which  may  be  called 
the  soul  of  poetical  life.  We  sought  for  the  universal 
conditions  under  which  an  idea  must  germinate  and 


POETICAL  EXPRESSION 


come  into  being  in  the  imagination  of  the  individual 
poet,  in  order  afterwards  to  enjoy  immortal  life  in 
the  imagination  of  the  world.  I  shall  deal  to-day 
with  the  laws  of  poetical  expression,  in  other  words, 
of  the  outward  form  or  body  in  which  the  poet's 
conception  is  manifested.  And  just  as  in  human 
beings  it  is  the  complete  union  of  soul  and  body 
which  constitutes  the  harmonious  life  of  each  person, 
so  in  poetry  the  beauty  and  propriety  of  the  imagin- 
ative form  will  proceed  from  the  organic  unity  of 
the  imaginative  conception.  This  is  a  truth  which 
requires  to  be  thoroughly  realised,  and  I  think  I 
cannot  make  it  clear  to  you  better  than  by  reverting 
to  the  words  of  Horace  I  have  already  cited  : 

Cui  lecta  potenter  erit  res, 
Nee  facundia  deseret  hunc  nee  lucidus  ordo. 

I  do  not  understand  Horace  to  mean  that  just 
conception  in  poetry  necessarily  inspires  the  poet 
with  the  best  form  of  expression.  Such  an  opinion 
would  be  contrary  to  experience :  the  history  of 
poetry  shows  that  many  true  poets,  especially  young 
poets — men  like  Persius  and  Oldham,  for  example — 
have  wanted  the  perfect  art  which  is  needed  to  do 
justice  to  their  thoughts.  Thus  Dry  den,  in  his  lines 
on  the  death  of  Oldham,  asks  : 

0  early  ripe,  to  thy  abundant  store 
What  could  advancing  age  have  added  more '? 
It  might — what  Nature  never  gives  the  young — 
Have  taught  the  numbers  of  thy  native  tongue  : 
But  Satire  needs  not  those,  and  Wit  may  shine 
Through  the  harsh  cadence  of  a  rugged  line. 
F 


66  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Horace  is  speaking  rather  of  the  inward  conditions 
that  must  be  satisfied  before  a  poetical  conception  can 
be  animated  with  the  spark  of  life.  What  are  they  ? 
First  of  all,  res ;  the  poet  must  be  sure  that  he  has 
something  poetical  to  say.  Next,  what  he  has  to 
say  must  be  lecta  potenter,  chosen  suitably  or 
according  to  capacity, — a  phrase  which,  I  think,  has 
a  double  meaning.  The  subject  must  be  treated  in 
accordance  with  the  powers  of  the  poet,  and  conform- 
ably with  what  its  own  nature  requires.  Poets  are 
often  anxious  to  excel  in  styles  of  poetry  for  which 
nature  has  not  qualified  them.  Tennyson,  for  ex- 
ample, constantly  attempted  the  poetical  drama,  but 
never  with  success.  Keats  and  Shelley  failed  con- 
spicuously whenever  they  aimed  at  comic  humour. 
Again,  the  subject  must  be  treated  in  the  manner 
which  its  inherent  nature  and  the  circumstances  of 
the  age  demand.  Paradise  Lost,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  required  epic  treatment ;  it  could  not  have 
properly  taken  a  dramatic  form,  at  least  in  Milton's 
time.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  conditions  of 
just  conception  have  been  satisfied ;  when  the  fruitful 
subject  has  been  selected ;  when  its  true  poetical 
character — be  it  epic,  dramatic,  or  satiric — has  been 
realised  ;  when  the  poet  has  allowed  the  subject  in 
all  its  bearings  to  blend  and  harmonise  with  his  own 
imagination  ;  then,  as  Horace  says,  he  will  find  him- 
self provided,  as  if  by  Nature  herself,  with  the 
richness  of  language  and  the  lucid  arrangement  of 
thought  necessary  to  give  to  his  conception  the 
appearance  of  organic  life. 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  67 

We  have  seen  that  in  every  just  poetical  concep- 
tion there  are  two  indispensable  elements  of  life — 
one  individual,  one  universal.  Both  of  these  elements 
must  therefore  reappear  in  the  form  of  poetical 
expression  in  which  the  poetical  conception  is  given 
to  the  world.  The  individual  element  in  every  great 
poem  is  imparted  to  it  solely  by  the  genius  of 
the  poet.  It  includes  everything  relating  to  the 
treatment  of  the  subject,  all  that  helps  to  produce 
the  organic  effect ;  the  just  distribution  of  the  matter, 
the  particular  methods  of  diction,  the  peculiar  com- 
binations of  metrical  movement ;  whatever,  in  fact, 
constitutes  the  distinction,  the  character,  the  style  of 
the  work.  All  this  resembles  the  individuality  of 
the  human  body,  and  indeed  the  style  of  every 
genuine  poet  may  be  compared  to  that  total  effect  of 
personality  produced  by  the  combination  of  feature, 
the  expression  of  the  countenance,  the  complexion, 
the  shape,  w^hich  makes  each  single  member  of  the 
human  race  in  some  respect  different  from  every  other 
member  of  it.  To  lay  down  laws  of  style  for  poetry 
is  to  attempt  the  impossible.  What  form  other  than 
that  of  the  Divirie  Comedy  could  have  expressed  the 
universal  idea  contained  in  the  subject  ?  Yet  what 
critical  analysis  could  ever  have  arrived  at  the  form 
invented  by  the  genius  of  Dante  ?  In  Dante  doubt- 
less there  is  a  strong  lyrical  note  ;  in  the  epic  and 
dramatic  forms  of  poetry,  on  the  contrary,  the  uni- 
versal element  predominates  ;  but  even  in  these  the 
individual  genius  of  the  poet  will  always  make  itself 
felt  by  some  characteristic  mode  of  expression.     The 


68  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

treatment  of  a  tragic  subject  by  Ben  Jonson  differs 
from  the  treatment  of  Shakespeare ;  Shakespeare's 
manner  is  equally  distinguishable  from  Fletcher's  ; 
Pope's  satiric  style  is  unlike  Dryden's,  and  Byron's 
stands  apart  from  both. 

We  cannot  go  beyond  the  simple  principle  of 
Horace,  which  says  that  the  right  form  of  expression 
will  spring  naturally  out  of  a  just  mode  of  conception. 
In  all  that  portion  of  the  art  of  poetry  which  relates 
to  the  treatment  of  the  subject,  the  sole  guide  of  the 
poet  must  be  his  own  judgment  :  the  extent  of  his 
success  in  the  expression  of  his  ideas  will  be  princi- 
pally determined  by  the  possession  of  a  quality  which, 
as  a  factor  of  composition,  is  not  less  important  than 
imagination  and  invention. 

But  while  the  genius  of  the  individual  poet  enjoys 
this  large  freedom,  there  are  certain  universal  laws  of 
expression,  proper  to  the  art  of  poetry,  which  no 
individual  poet  can  disregard  with  impunity  ;  and  as 
to  the  nature  of  these  I  think  it  is  perfectly  possible, 
by  the  inductive  method  of  criticism,  to  arrive  at 
positive  and  certain  conclusions.  I  have  said  that,  in 
my  opinion,  poetry  necessarily  produces  its  effects  by 
means  of  metrical  language.  But  upon  this  point 
there  is  a  dispute ;  and  the  question  which  I  am  now 
going  to  put  before  you  for  consideration  is.  Whether 
metre  is  necessary  for  poetical  expression,  and,  if  so, 
whether  this  necessity  binds  the  poet  to  use  forms  of 
diction  which,  even  apart  from  metre,  are  diflferent 
from  the  forms  of  prose  ? 

Now  as  to  the  first  of  these  questions  very  oppo- 


lECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  69 

site  opinions  have  been  advanced,  according  to  the 
view  which  has  been  taken  of  the  nature  of  poetry  ; 
it  has  been  said,  on  the  one  hand,  that  poetry  is 
merely  versification,  and,  on  the  other,  that  verse  is 
not  necessary  for  poetry.  The  former  opinion  had 
its  advocates  as  early  as  the  days  of  Aristotle,  who 
shows  us  that  certain  authorities,  of  whom  he  does 
not  speak  without  respect,  considered  that  poetry 
consisted  in  putting  words  together  in  a  certain 
order  determined  by  the  quantity  of  their  syllables, 
one  critic  going  even  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  would 
be  quite  easy  to  make  poetry  if  you  were  allowed  to 
lengthen  or  abbreviate  syllables  at  will.^  Opposed  to 
this  opinion  is  one  equally  extreme,  but  recommended 
by  the  eminent  names  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  and 
Shelley.     Sidney  says,  in  his  Apology  for  Poetry : 

The  greatest  part  of  poets  have  apparelled  their  poetical  in- 
ventions in  that  numberous  kind  of  writing  which  is  called  verse. 
Indeed  but  apparelled,  verse  being  but  an  ornament  and  no  cause 
to  poetry,  since  there  have  been  many  most  excellent  poets  that 
have  never  versified,  and  now  swarm  many  versifiers  that  need 
never  answer  to  the  name  of  poets.  For  Xenophon,  who  did 
imitate  so  excellently  as  to  give  us  effigicm  jmfi  imperii,  the  por- 
traiture of  a  just  empire  under  the  name  of  Cyrus  (as  Cicero 
saith  of  him),  made  therein  an  absolute  heroical  poem. 

And  Shelley  says,  in  his  Defence  of  Poetry : 

It  is  by  no  means  essential  that  a  poet  should  accommodate 
his  language  to  the  traditional  form,  so  that  the  harmony  which 
is  its  spirit  be  observed.  The  practice  is  indeed  convenient  and 
popular  and  to  be  preferred,  especially  in  such  composition  as 
includes  much  action :  but  every  great  poet  must  inevitably 
innovate   upon   the  example  of  his  predecessors   in   the  exact 

'  Aristotle,  Poclius,  xxii.  5. 


70  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

structure  of  his  peculiar  versification.  The  distinction  between 
poets  and  prose  writers  is  a  viilgar  error.  .  .  .  Plato  was  essen- 
tially a  poet  .  .  .  the  truth  and  splendour  of  his  imagery  and 
the  melody  of  his  language  are  the  most  intense  that  it  is  possible 
to  conceive.  .  .  .  Lord  Bacon  was  a  poet.  His  language  has  a 
sweet  and  majestic  rhythm  which  satisfies  the  sense  no  less  than 
the  almost  superhuman  wisdom  of  his  philosophy  satisfies  the 
intellect. 

What  Aristotle  thought  on  the  matter  is  not 
quite  clear.  He  extends  the  idea  of  poetical  "  imita- 
tion "  so  as  to  include  certain  compositions  in  prose  ; 
but  his  argument  is  directed  against  those  who  think 
that  poetry  lies  solely  in  versification ;  he  does  not 
attempt  to  prove  that  metre  is  not  a  necessary  accom- 
paniment of  the  higher  conceptions  of  poetry.^  This 
great  critic,  therefore,  cannot  be  ranged  with  those 
who  support  that  extreme  opinion,  and  the  arguments 
of  Sidney  and  Shelley  will  not  stand  examination. 
The  fallacy  of  the  examples  given  by  each  of  these 
critics  is,  that  they  do  not  take  into  account  the 
different  aims  of  the  writers  they  cite.  The  end  of 
Xenophon  in  the  Cyropcedeia  was  not  to  please  but 
to  instruct ;  if  he  produced  an  image  pleasing  to  the 
fancy,  it  was  only  by  accident.  Shelley's  reasoning 
is  still  more  inconsequent.  It  does  not  follow,  be- 
cause the  versification  of  every  great  poet  innovates 
on  the  practice  of  his  predecessors,  that  versification 
can  therefore  be  dispensed  with  in  poetry.  Nor  does 
it  follow,  because  the  truth  and  splendour  of  Plato's 

'  See  Aristotle,  Poetics,  c.  i.  6-8.  A  correspondence  with  Professor 
Butcher,  the  eminent  editor  of  Aristotle's  Poetics,  convinces  me  that  by  ^iXoi 
\6yoi  the  philosopher  means  compositions  in  prose,  and  not,  as  I  was  at  first 
inclined  to  think,  metrical  words  unaccompanied  by  music. 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  71 

imagery  are  the  most  intense  that  it  is  possible  to 
conceive,  that  he  was  therefore  "  essentially  a  poet "  ; 
the  same  might  be  said  of  the  imagery  of  a  great 
orator ;  yet  oratory  is  not  poetry.  The  end  of  Plato 
was  to  convince  by  dialectic,  and  though  for  this 
purpose  he  may  have  resorted  to  rhetorical  and 
poetical  methods  of  persuasion,  that  does  not  take 
him  out  of  the  class  "  philosopher,"  and  transplant 
him  into  the  class  "  poet."  The  most  that  Sidney 
and  Shelley  prove  is,  what  every  sensible  critic  would 
be  ready  to  grant  without  argument,  that  poetry  does 
not  lie  in  metrical  expression  alone. 

Against  the  obiter  dicta  of  these  two  writers, 
distinguished  as  they  are,  I  put  the  universal  practice 
of  the  great  masters  of  the  art,  and  I  ask,  Why  have 
poets  always  written  in  metre  ?  The  answer  is. 
Because  the  laws  of  artistic  expression  oblige  them 
to  do  so.  When  the  poet  has  been  inspired  from 
without  in  the  way  in  which  we  saw  Scott  was  in- 
spired to  conceive  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel — 
that  is  to  say,  when  he  has  found  his  subject-matter 
in  an  idea  universally  striking  to  the  imagination, 
when  he  has  received  this  into  his  own  imagination, 
and  has  given  it  a  new  and  beautiful  form  of  life 
there,  then  he  will  seek  to  express  his  conception 
through  a  vehicle  of  language  harmonising  with  his 
own  feelings  and  the  nature  of  the  subject,  and  this 
kind  of  language  is  called  verse.  For  example,  when 
Marlowe  wishes  to  represent  the  emotions  of  Faustus, 
after  he  has  called  up  the  phantom  of  Helen  of  Troy, 
it  is  plain  that  some  very  rapturous  form  of  expres- 


72  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


sion  is  needed  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  such 
famous  beauty.  Marlowe  rises  to  the  occasion  in 
those  "  mighty  lines  "  of  his  : 

Was  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships, 
And  burned  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium  ? 

But  it  is  certain  that  he  could  only  have  ventured  on 
the  sublime  audacity  of  saying  that  a  face  launched 
ships  and  burned  towers  by  escaping  from  the  limits 
of  ordinary  language,  and  conveying  his  metaphor 
through  the  harmonious  and  ecstatic  movements  of 
rhythm  and  metre. 

Or,  to  take  another  instance,  Virgil  more  than 
once  describes  the  passion  of  the  living  when  visited 
by  the  spirits  of  those  whom  they  have  loved  and 
lost,  and  he  invented  a  metrical  form  of  expression 
for  the  feeling,  which  he  knew  to  be  so  beautiful  that 
he  used  it  twice.  Expressed  in  prose,  the  passage 
runs  thus :  "  Thrice  he  there  attempted  to  throw 
his  arms  round  her  neck ;  thrice  embraced  in  vain, 
the  phantom  glided  from  his  grasp ;  light  as  the 
empty  winds,  likest  to  a  fleeting  dream."  There 
is  pathos  in  this  ;  but  now  listen  to  the  verses  : 

Ter  conatus  ibi  coUo  dare  brachia  circum, 
Ter,  frustra  comprensa,  manus  eftugit  imago, 
Par  levibus  ventis  volucrique  simillima  somno. 

What  infinite  longing,  what  depths  of  sorrow,  are 
expressed  in  the  selection  and  collocation  of  the  words, 
and  the  rhythmical  efi'ect  of  the  whole  passage  !  Ho^\ 
profound  a  note  of  melancholy  is  struck  in  the  mono- 
syllables with  which  each  line  opens  !     How  wonder- 


i.ECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  73 

fully  is  the  fading  of  the  vision  symbolised  in  the 
dactylic  swiftness  with  which  the  last  line  glides  to 
its  close ! 

Or,  yet  once  more  :  you  remember  how  Prospero 
breaks  off  the  marriage  pageant  in  the  Tempest  to 
deal  with  the  conspirators,  and  the  splendidly  abrupt 
transition  of  feeling  with  which  he  reminds  his 
audience  of  the  end  of  all  mortal  things  : 

And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-cap't  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inhabit,  shall  dissolve ; 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind.     We  are  such  stufif 
As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep. 

I  think  no  critic  in  his  senses  would  say  that  the  full 
effect  of  this  passage  could  be  given  in  prose. 

Nevertheless,  though  the  necessity  of  metre  to 
poetry  would  thus  appear  to  be  proved  by  reason  and 
by  the  practice  of  the  greatest  poets,  it  has  been  denied 
by  one  who  was  undoubtedly  a  master  in  the  art.  In 
the  well-known  preface  published  with  his  poems  in 
1805  Wordsworth  asserts  that  the  poet  is  under  no 
obligation  to  write  in  verse,  and  that  he  himself  only 
does  so  on  account,  partly,  of  the  additional  pleasure 
afforded  by  metre,  and,  partly,  of  certain  technical 
advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  practice.  He 
defends  his  theory  as  follows  : 

From  the  tendency  of  metre  to  throw  a  sort  of  half-conscious- 
ness of  unsubstantial  existence  over  the  whole  composition, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  more  |)athetic  situations  and 


74  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


sentiments — that  is,  those  that  have  a  greater  proportion  of  pain 
connected  with  them — may  be  endured  in  metrical  compositions, 
especially  in  rhyme,  than  in  prose.  .  .  .  This  opinion  may  he 
illustrated  by  appealing  to  the  reader's  own  experience  of  the 
reluctance  with  which  he  comes  to  the  representation  of  the  dis- 
tressful parts  of  Clarism  Ilarlowe  or  TJie  Gamester ;  while  Shake- 
speare's writings  in  the  most  pathetic  scenes  never  act  upon  us 
as  pathetic  beyond  the  bounds  of  pleasure — an  effect  which  in  a 
much  greater  degree  than  might  be  imagined  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  small  but  continual  and  regular  impulses  of  pleasurable  sur- 
prise from  the  metrical  arrangement. 

I  think  Wordsworth's  analysis  of  emotion  is  clearly 
wrong.  The  reason  why  the  harrowing  descriptions 
of  Richardson  are  simply  painful,  while  Shakespeare's 
tragic  situations  are  pleasurable,  is  that  the  imagina- 
tion shrinks  from  dwelling  on  ideas  so  closely  imitated 
from  real  objects  as  the  scenes  in  Clarissa  Harloive, 
but  contemplates  without  excess  of  pain  the  situation 
in  Othello,  for  example,  because  the  imitation  is 
poetical  and  ideal.  Prose  is  used  by  Richardson 
because  his  novel  professedly  resembles  a  situation  of 
real  life ;  metre  is  needed  by  Shakespeare  to  make 
the  ideal  life  of  his  drama  real  to  the  imagination. 
Wordsworth,  if  I  may  say  so,  has  put  the  poetical 
cart  before  the  horse. 

It  may  be  admitted,  however,  that  if  Words- 
worth's theoretical  principles  of  poetical  conception 
were  just,  he  would  not  only  have  been  under  no 
necessity  to  write  in  metre,  but  he  would  have  been 
wrong  to  use  it  at  all.     He  says  of  his  own  method  : 

The  principal  object  proposed  in  these  poems  was  to  choose 
incidents  and   situations  from   common  life,   and  to  relate   or 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  75 

describe  them  throughout,  as  far  as  was  possible,  in  a  selection 
of  language  really  used  by  men,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  throw 
over  them  a  certain  colouring  of  the  imagination  whereliy 
ordinary  things  should  be  presented  to  the  mind  in  an  unusual 
aspect ;  and  further,  and  above  all,  to  make  these  incidents  and 
situations  interesting  by  tracing  in  them  truly,  though  not 
ostentatiously,  the  primary  laws  of  our  nature  :  chiefly  as  far  as 
regards  the  manner  in  which  we  associate  ideas  in  a  state  of 
excitement. 

Now,  whether  this  method  of  composition  can  or 
cannot  be  regarded  as  falling  legitimately  within  the 
art  of  poetry,  it  is  at  least  certain  that  it  is  opposed 
at  all  points  to  the  mode  of  conception  adopted  by 
the  greatest  poets  of  the  world,  as  this  has  been 
already  described.  It  does  not  involve  inspiration  by 
the  universal  idea  from  without,  and  the  recreation  of 
the  universal  idea  within,  the  mind  of  the  individual 
poet.  It  implies,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  inspira- 
tion proceeds  from  the  poet's  own  mind ;  that  the 
poet  can  make  even  common  things  poetical  by 
throwing  "  over  them  a  certain  colouring  of  the 
imagination  ;  "  the  process  of  conception  described  is 
one  not  so  much  of  imaginative  creation  as  of 
imaginative  analysis ;  and  to  express  quasi-scientific 
truths  of  this  kind  the  metaphorical  forms  of  lan- 
guage peculiar  to  metrical  writing  are  certainly  not 
required. 

But,  more  than  this,  it  can  be  shown  that,  in 
endeavouring  to  put  the  particular  conceptions  he 
speaks  of  into  metre,  Wordsworth  was  adopting  a 
wrong  form  of  expression.  Let  me  not  be  misunder- 
stood.    Wordsworth,  I  need  hardly  say,  often  wrote 


76  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


very  nobly  in  metre  ;  but  when  he  did  so,  he  did  none 
of  those  things  which,  according  to  his  own  theory 
of  poetry,  he  ought  to  have  done.  For  it  is  quite 
certain  that  neither  in  Laodamia,  nor  in  the  Ode  on 
Immortality,  nor  in  the  lines  about  skating  on  Win- 
dermere in  the  Prelude,  nor  in  those  about  the 
"  lively  Grecian "  in  the  Excursion,  nor  in  those 
describing  the  Yew  Trees  of  Borrowdale,  nor  in  the 
Sonnet  on  the  Dawn  on  Westminster  Bridge,  nor  in 
that  on  Liberty,  nor  in  a  hundred  other  places,  is 
there  anything  of  that  analytical  process  of  concep- 
tion on  which  he  sets  so  high  a  value.  In  all  of  the 
examples  I  have  mentioned  there  is  the  res  lecta 
potenter ;  that  is  to  say,  an  idea  of  universal  interest. 
This  universal  idea  is  assimilated  with  the  poet's 
imagination,  and  it  is  expressed  in  what  is  universally 
felt  to  be  a  noble  and  beautiful  form  of  words.  But 
sometimes  Wordsworth  really  does  work  in  the  way 
which  he  says  is  the  right  way.  The  whole  concep- 
tion and  construction,  for  example,  of  the  Prelude 
and  the  Excursion  are  founded  on  a  subject-matter 
which  is  private  to  the  poet  himself,  and  consists  for 
the  most  part  of  conversational  discourse  about 
external  matters  not  of  universal  interest.  Here 
undoubtedly  the  whole  process  of  imagination  is 
analytical,  and  consequently  the  forms  of  expression 
used  are,  for  the  most  part,  prosaic.  Take,  for 
example,  the  following  lines,  which  are  neither 
better  nor  worse  than  hundreds,  probably  thou- 
sands, in  these  poems : 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  77 

These  serious  words 
Closed  the  preparatory  notices 
That  served  my  Fellow  Traveller  to  beguile 
The  way  while  we  advanced  up  that  wide  vale. 

Who  does  not  perceive  that  the  man  who  wrote  this 
was  not,  at  the  time  he  wrote  it,  in  the  right  mood 
for  poetical  expression?  And  accordingly,  as  he 
chooses  to  express  himself  in  metre,  he  often  uses 
wrong  forms,  as,  for  example,  in  a  passage  like  this, 
describing  his  residence  in  London  : 

At  leisure  then  I  viewed  from  day  to  day 

The  spectacles  within  doors,  birds  and  beasts 

Of  every  nature,  and  strange  plants  convened 

From  every  clime  ;  and  next  those  sights  that  ape 

The  absolute  presence  of  reality, 

Expressing,  as  in  mirror,  sea  and  land, 

And  what  earth  is,  and  what  she  has  to  show  : 

I  do  not  here  allude  to  subtlest  craft, 

By  means  refined  attaining  purest  ends, 

But  imitations,  fondly  made,  in  plain 

Confession  of  man's  weakness  and  his  loves. 

Observe  that  Wordsworth  is  here  working  on  a 
subject  of  his  own  choosing — an  "  incident  and  situa- 
tion from  common  life," — and  he  is  trying  to  make 
it  fit  matter  for  poetry  by  showing  its  relation  to  his 
own  mind,  and  yet,  for  all  this,  he  does  not  contrive 
to  present  his  thought  in  what  he  calls  "  a  selection 
of  language  really  used  by  men."  For  if  he  had  done 
this,  he  would  simply  have  said:  "Every  day  I  was 
accustomed  to  go  to  a  natural  history  museum,  or  a 
picture  gallery,  in  which  scenes  from  nature  were 
exactly  imitated ; "    that  is  to  say,  he  might  have 


78  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


expressed  in  twenty-four  words  what  he  actually  ex- 
presses in  eighty-one.  You  see,  too,  that  Wordsworth, 
as  he  chooses  to  write  in  metre  on  such  a  subject,  is, 
in  spite  of  himself,  forced  to  use  a  kind  of  poetical 
diction,  which  makes  his  style  pedantic  and  obscure. 
For  what  man  in  real  life,  wishing  to  describe  what 
he  had  seen  at  Kew  Gardens,  would  say  that  he  had 
"  viewed  strange  plants  convened  from  every  clime''  ? 
Or  who  would  think  it  worth  while  to  say  that  the 
Panorama  of  Niagara  was  an  exhibition  that  "  apes 
the  absolute  presence  of  reality  "  ? 

I  think  that  what  I  have  said  serves  to  show  that 
the  propriety  of  poetical  expression  is  the  test  and 
the  touchstone  of  the  justice  of  poetical  conception. 
Like  all  sound  principles,  Horace's  maxim  about  the 
right  selection  of  subject  is  capable  of  being  reversed. 
Poetry  lies  in  the  invention  of  the  right  metrical 
form — be  it  epic,  dramatic,  lyric,  or  satiric — for  the 
expression  of  some  idea  universally  interesting  to  the 
imagination.  When  the  form  of  metrical  expression 
seems  natural — natural,  that  is,  to  the  genius  of  the 
poet  and  the  inherent  character  of  the  subject — then 
the  subject-matter  will  have  been  rightly  conceived. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  found  to  be  prosaic, 
obscure,  strained,  or  affected,  then  we  may  be  sure 
either  that  the  subject  has  not  been  properly  selected 
by  the  poet,  or  that  the  individuality  of  the  poet  has, 
in  the  treatment,  been  indulged  out  of  due  proportion 
to  the  universal  nature  of  the  subject. 

Apply  this  test  of  what  is  natural  in  metrical  ex- 
pression to  any  composition  claiming  to  be  poetically 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  79 

inspired,  and  you  will  be  able  to  decide  whether  it 
fulfils  the  universal  conditions  of  poetical  life,  or 
whether  it  is  one  of  those  phantoms,  or,  as  Bacon 
calls  them,  idols  of  the  imagination,  which  vanish  as 
soon  as  the  novelty  of  their  appearance  has  exhausted 
its  efi'ect.  For  instance,  the  American  poet,  Walt 
Whitman,  announces  his  theme,  and  asks  for  the 
sympathy  of  the  reader  in  these  words  : 

Oneself  I  sing,  a  simple,  separate  person. 

Yet  utter  the  word  Democratic,  the  word  En  Masse. 

Poets  to  come,  orators,  singers,  musicians  to  come. 

Not  to-day  is  to  justify  me  and  answer  what  I  am  for. 

But  you,  a  new  brood,  native,  athletic,  continental,  greater  than 

before  known. 
Arouse !  for  you  must  justify  me  ! 

I  am  a  man  who,  sauntering  along  without  fully  stopping,  turns 
a  casual  look  upon  you  and  then  averts  his  face. 

Leaving  it  to  you  to  prove  and  define  it. 

Expecting  the  main  thing  from  you. 

Thou,  reader,  throbbest  life,  and  pride,  and  love,  the  same 
as  I : 

Therefore  for  thee  the  following  chants. 

To  this  appeal  I  think  the  reader  may  reply  : 
The  subject  you  have  chosen  is  certainly  an  idol  of 
the  imagination.  For  if  you  had  anything  of  universal 
interest  to  say  about  yourself,  you  could  say  it  in  a 
way  natural  to  one  of  the  metres,  or  metrical  move- 
ments, established  in  the  English  language.  AVhat 
you  call  metre  bears  precisely  the  same  relation  to 
these  universal  laws  of  expression,  as  the  Mormon 
Church  and  the  religion  of  Joseph  Smith  and  Brigham 
Young  bear  to  the  doctrines  of  Catholic  Christendom. 


So  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Again,  we  have  the  poetical  ideal  of  the  graceful 
poet  whose  recent  loss  we  in  England  have  so  much 
cause  to  deplore.  Mr.  William  Morris's  aim  in 
poetry  was*  to  revive  the  spirit  and  manner  of  the 
past  in  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  the  present.  He 
says,  in  his  Earthly  Paradise : 

Of  Heaven  and  Hell  I  have  no  power  to  sing ; 
I  cannot  ease  the  burden  of  your  fears ; 
Or  make  quick-coming  death  a  little  thing ; 
Or  bring  again  the  pleasures  of  past  years ; 
Nor  for  my  words  shall  ye  forget  your  tears. 
Or  hope  again  for  aught  that  I  can  say, 
The  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day. 

But  rather  when,  aweary  of  your  mirth. 

From  full  hearts,  still  unsatisfied,  ye  sigh  ; 

And  feeling  kindly  unto  all  the  earth, 

Grudge  every  minute  as  it  passes  by. 

Made  the  more  mindful  that  the  sweet  days  die ; 

Remember  me  a  little,  then,  I  pray. 

The  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day. 

The  heavy  trouble,  the  bewildering  care, 

That  weigh  us  down,  who  live  and  earn  our  bread, 

These  idle  verses  have  no  power  to  bear. 

So  let  us  sing  of  names  remembered. 

Because  they,  living  not,  can  ne'er  be  dead, 

Nor  long  time  take  their  memories  away 

From  us  poor  singers  of  an  empty  day. 

Of  this  we  must  say  that  it  is  tender,  charming,  even 
beautiful,  and  under  existing  circumstances  peculiarly 
pathetic  ;  but  still  a  poetical  idol.  We  feel  that  the 
form  of  expression  in  metre  is  not  quite  natural ;  the 
artifice  is  apparent.  It  bears  the  same  relation  to  the 
life  of  poetry  that  mere  Ritualism  bears  to  Religion. 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  8i 

The  language  does  not  proceed  from  the  source  of  life 
that  inspired  the  poetry  of  Chaucer,  Mr.  Morris's 
professed  master.  Chaucer  would  never  have  spoken 
in  this  morbid  way  about  life,  and  death,  and  action  ; 
he  would  never  have  regarded  poetry  as  an  opiate 
for  the  imagination.  His  mode  of  conception  was 
masculine,  humorous,  dramatic ;  he  drew  his  inspira- 
tion from  the  life  about  him,  and  accordingly  the 
metrical  forms  he  used  sprang  naturally  out  of  the 
idiom  of  his  time. 

Once  more,  there  is  an  idol  of  the  art  of  poetry  which 
suggests  that  the  source  of  poetical  life  is  to  be  found 
in  words  rather  than  in  ideas.  This  is  of  all  poetical 
idols  the  most  seductive,  because  it  presents  strongly 
one  side  of  the  truth,  and  because  it  is  recommended 
by  many  brilliant  poetical  tours  de  force.  Coleridge 
defined  prose  to  be  words  in  the  right  order,  poetry 
to  be  the  best  words  in  the  right  order.  And, 
doubtless,  the  mere  sound  of  words  has  the  power  of 
raising   imaginative   ideas,  as  we  see   from   Keats's 

lines — 

Forlorn  !  the  very  word  is  like  a  bell, 
To  toll  me  back  again  to  my  sole  self  ! 

and  we  know  that  the  word  "  nevermore "  inspired 
Edgar  Poe  with  his  remarkable  poem,  T/ie  Raven. 
But  words,  apart  from  things,  can,  as  a  rule,  suggest 
only  fragmentary  conceptions  of  life  and  nature. 
What  can  be  more  delightfully  suggestive  of  coming 
poetry  than  the  opening  of  Kuhla  Khan  f 

In  Xanadu  did  Knbla  Khan 

A  stately  pleasure-dome  decree  : 


82  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  ran 
Through  caverns  measureless  to  man 
Down  to  a  sunless  sea. 

But,  as  we  know,  Nature  never  provided  the  comple- 
tion, nor  could  she  have  done  so,  of  that  wonderful 
fragment  of  poetry.  Sometimes,  indeed,  a  whole 
poem  containing  a  definite  idea  may  be  constructed 
on  this  principle,  and  a  very  fine  example  is  furnished 
by  Mr.  Swinburne's  Dolores,  where  the  aim  of  the 
poet  has,  apparently,  been  to  group  a  variety  of 
images  round  the  single  central  phrase,  "  Our  Lady 
of  Pain."  Many  of  the  stanzas  in  this  poem  com- 
pletely satisfy  Coleridge's  definition  of  poetry,  "the 
best  words  in  the  right  order,"  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  the  inspiration  proceeds  from  Avords  rather 
than  ideas,  there  are  many  other  stanzas  in  it  which 
have  no  poetical  raiso7i  d'etre,  and  which  diminish 
the  effect  of  the  whole  composition.  This  mode  of 
expression  belongs  to  the  art  of  music  rather  than  to 
the  art  of  poetry.  Horace's  rule  is  inverted :  the 
eloquence  and  order  of  the  metrical  arrangement 
suggest  the  idea,  not  the  idea  the  verse.  I  do  not 
say  that  such  a  method  of  composition  is  illegitimate  ; 
but  it  must  be  evident  that  the  inspiration  is  of  the 
most  fortuitous  kind,  and  that  one  might  as  well 
attempt  to  make  oneself  dream  the  same  dream  twice 
over,  as  to  find  a  regular  principle  of  poetical  ex- 
pression in  the  metrical  combination  of  words  and 
metaphors. 

Few  indeed  are  the  metrical  compositions  that 
will  stand  the  test  I  propose,  few  the  poems  that 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  83 

answer  perfectly  to  Spenser's  description  of  life  in 
poetry : 

JVise  words,  taught  in  numbers  for  to  run, 

Recorded  by  the  Muses,  live  for  ay. 

But  this  being  so,  we  may  well  ask  ourselves  the 
question,  Why  is  verse  so  abundantly  produced  in 
our  time  ?  Why  do  we  so  often  find  men  in  these 
days,  either  using  metre,  like  Wordsworth  in  the 
passages  I  have  cited,  where  they  ought  to  have 
expressed  themselves  in  prose,  or  expressing  them- 
selves in  verse  in  a  style  so  far  remote  from  the 
standard  of  diction  established  in  society  that  they 
fail  to  touch  the  heart  ? 

I  think  the  explanation  of  this  curious  pheno- 
menon is  that,  though  metre  can  only  properly  be 
used  for  the  expression  of  universal  ideas,  there  is  in 
modern  society  an  eccentric  or  monastic  principle  at 
work,  which  leads  men  to  pervert  metre  into  a 
luxurious  instrument  for  the  expression  of  merely 
private  ideas.  The  metrical  form  of  expression  is 
the  oldest  form  of  literary  language  that  exists.  In 
the  early  stages  of  society  it  is  used  for  two  reasons, 
first  because,  as  writing  has  not  been  invented,  it  is 
the  only  way  of  preserving  memorable  thoughts, 
and  secondly  because  in  primitive  times  what  may 
be  called  the  poetical  or  ideal  method  of  conceiv- 
ing nature  predominates  over  the  scientific  method. 
Imagination  is  then  stronger  than  reason,  and  the 
poet  is  at  once  the  story-teller,  the  theologian,  the 
historian,  and  the  natural  philosopher  of  society. 
As  society  emerges  from  its  infancy  more  scientific 


84  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

habits  of  thought  are  gradually  formed  ;  the  art  of 
writing  is  invented  ;  and  men  find  the  means  of 
preserving  the  records  of  ordinary  observation  and 
experience  in  prose.  Science  is  always  withdrawing 
fresh  portions  of  nature  from  the  rule  of  imagina- 
tion ;  and  no  one  who  is  animated  by  a  scientific 
purpose,  and  understands  how  to  use  language 
properly,  thinks  any  longer  of  composing  a  treatise 
on  astronomy  or  an  historical  narrative  in  verse. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  these  achievements  of  civilisation 
and  science,  it  would  be  a  vast  mistake  to  suppose 
that  society  in  its  later  stages  can  dispense  with  the 
poet  and  the  art  of  metrical  composition.  The 
deepest  life  of  society  is  spiritual,  ideal,  incapable  of 
analysis.  What  binds  men  to  each  other  is  the 
memory  of  a  common  origin,  the  prospects  of  a 
common  destiny,  common  perceptions  of  what  is 
heroic  in  conduct,  common  instincts  as  to  what  is 
beautiful  in  art.  The  unimpassioned  language,  suit- 
able to  law  and  science,  suffices  not  for  the  embodi- 
ment of  these  great  elemental  ideas.  The  poet  alone 
possesses  the  art  of  giving  expression  to  the  con- 
ceptions of  the  public  conscience,  and  he  is  as  much 
bound  to  interpret  the  higher  feelings  of  society  in 
the  maturity  of  its  development,  as  the  scald  or 
minstrel  was  bound  to  act  as  interpreter  for  the 
imagination  of  the  primitive  tribe.  No  other  defence 
of  the  art  of  poetry  is  needed  than  this,  that,  only 
in  imaginative  creations,  metrically  expressed,  can 
society  behold  the  image  of  its  own  unity,  and 
realise  the  objects  of  its  own  spiritual  existence. 


POETICAL  EXPRESSION 


But  since  this  is  so,  to  pursue  any  other  ideal  is 
**  to  speak  things  nnworthy  of  Phoebus,"  and  to 
misapply  the  purposes  of  the  art.  Nevertheless  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  contrary  views  of  the  end  of 
poetry  have  asserted  themselves  in  this  generation. 
The  vulgar  idea  of  poetry  is,  that  it  is  something 
private,  peculiar,  and  opposed  to  common  sense. 
We  have  been  taught  by  the  poets  themselves  that 
the  source  of  poetry  lies  solely  in  the  mind  of  the 
individual  poet,  and  that  the  life  of  poetical  ex- 
pression is  to  be  found  apart  from  the  active  life  of 
society.  Philosophers  have  encouraged  this  belief. 
John  Stuart  Mill  attempts  to  draw  a  sharp  distinc- 
tion between  the  genius  of  the  orator  and  that  of  the 
poet ;  the  one,  he  says,  speaks  to  be  heard,  the  other 
to  be  overheard.^  I  venture  to  say  that  a  more 
false  description  of  the  life  and  nature  of  poetry  has 
never  been  given  to  the  world.  At  no  great  epoch 
of  poetical  production  was  the  art  of  the  poet  ever 
entirely  separated  from  that  of  the  orator.  Did 
Homer,  Pindar,  the  Greek  tragedians,  and  Aristo- 
phanes not  speak  to  be  heard  ?  Were  the  Trouveres, 
the  Troubadours,  the  Ballad  Singers,  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists,  the  English  satirists  of  the  Restoration 
and  the  Revolution,  not  dependent  on  an  audience  ? 
There  have  been,  it  is  true,  epochs  when  the  private 
literary  motives  approved  by  Mill  have  prevailed  in 
poetical  composition — Alexandrian  periods  of  litera- 
ture, when  the  poet,  abandoning  the  representation 
of  the  great  themes  of  action  and  passion,  and  sick 

'  Dissertations  and  Discussions,  i.  71  (1859). 


86  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


of  self-love  like  Malvolio,  has  indulged  himself  in 
the  pleasures  of  soliloquy.  But  these  were  also  the 
ages  in  the  history  of  the  world  when  men  for  the 
sake  of  life  had  destroyed  the  causes  of  living,  when 
a  petty  materialism  had  dwarfed  their  conception  of 
the  sublime  and  the  heroic,  when  liberty  had  perished, 
and  art  languished  in  decay. 

On  this  subject  I  propose  to  speak  more  fully  in 
my  next  lecture  on  Poetical  Decadence.  Meantime 
the  course  of  our  argument  brings  me  round  to  a 
re-statement  of  the  law  of  poetry,  as  it  is  declared 
by  Horace,  and  illustrated  in  the  practice  of  all  great 
classic  poets.  The  secret  of  enduring  poetical  life 
lies  in  individualising  the  universal,  not  in  uni- 
versalising  the  individual.  What  is  required  of  the 
poet  above  all  things  is  right  conception  —  the  res 
lecta  potenter  of  Horace — a  happy  choice  of  subject- 
matter  which  shall  at  once  assimilate  readily  with 
the  poet's  genius,  and  shall,  in  Shakespeare's  phrase, 
"  show  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form 
and  pressure."  The  poet  must  be  able  not  only  to 
gauge  the  extent  of  his  own  powers,  but  to  divine 
the  necessities  of  his  audience.  He  must  realise  the 
nature  of  the  subject-matter  which,  in  his  generation, 
most  needs  expression,  and  know  whether  it  requires 
to  be  expressed  in  the  epic,  dramatic,  lyric,  or  satiric 
form.  When  the  subject  has  been  rightly  conceived, 
then,  as  Horace  says,  it  will  instinctively  clothe  itself 
in  the  right  form  of  expression,  according  to  the 
laws  of  the  art.  The  poet's  theme  being  of  a  universal 
nature,   Wordsworth    was  right  in  demanding  that 


LECT.  II  POETICAL  EXPRESSION  87 

his  diction  should  not  be  very  remote  from  "the 
real  language  of  men  "  ;  but  as  the  poet's  thought  is 
conveyed  in  verse,  the  expression  of  his  ideas  must 
accommodate  itself  to  the  laws  of  metre,  and  these 
exact  a  diction  far  more  radically  distinct,  than 
Wordsworth  imagined,  from  the  forms  of  prose. 
As  to  the  more  particular  character  of  poetic  diction, 
everything  will  depend  on  the  individual  genius  of 
the  poet :  the  beauties  of  style  must  be  studied  in 
the  works  of  the  great  classic  poets.  Shakespeare 
has  furnished  a  thousand  examples  of  poetic  diction 
suitable  to  the  requirements  of  the  romantic  drama ; 
the  style  of  Paradise  Lost,  peculiar  as  it  is,  is 
exactly  appropriate  to  what  Pope  calls  the  out-of-the- 
world  nature  of  the  subject;  Dryden's  character  of 
Zimri,  and  Pope's  lines  on  the  death  of  Buckingham, 
reach  the  highest  level  of  poetic  diction  in  satire ; 
and,  lest  I  should  be  thought  to  depreciate  the  poetry 
of  our  own  day,  let  me  cite  one  out  of  many  suitable 
passages  from  Tennyson's  In  MemoHam,  to  exemplify 
the  perfection  of  lyrical  composition.  The  lines  are 
those  in  which  the  poet  is  describing  the  loss  of  the 
individual  human  life  in  the  total  life  of  nature  : 

Unwatch'd,  the  garden  bough  shall  sway, 
The  tender  blossom  flutter  down  ; 
Unloved,  that  beech  will  gather  brown, 

This  maple  burn  itself  away  ; 

Unloved,  the  sun-flower,  shining  fair, 

liay  round  with  flames  her  disk  of  seed. 
And  many  a  rose-carnation  feed 

With  summer  spice  the  humming  air ; 


88  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Unloved,  by  many  a  sandy  bar 

The  brook  shall  babble  down  the  plain, 
At  noon  or  when  the  lesser  Wain 

Is  twisting  round  the  polar  star ; 

Uncared  for,  gird  the  windy  grove. 

And  flood  the  haunts  of  hern  and  crake  ; 
Or  into  silver  arrows  break 

The  sailing  moon  in  creek  and  cove  ; 

Till  from  the  garden  and  the  wild 
A  fresh  association  blow, 
And  year  by  year  the  landscape  grow 

Familiar  to  the  stranger's  cliild  ; 

As  year  by  year  the  labourer  tills 

His  wonted  glebe,  or  lops  the  glades  ; 
And  year  by  year  our  memory  fades 

From  all  the  circle  of  the  hills. 

There  is  hut  one  phrase  in  this  passage  which  I 
could  wish  to  see  altered.  "  Ttvisting  round  the 
polar  star  "  is  a  mode  of  expression  too  fanciful  and 
particular,  in  my  judgment,  to  blend  with  the  chaste 
simplicity  of  the  other  images.  But  with  this  ex- 
ception the  poetical  effect  is  produced  by  rendering  a 
general  idea  into  language  which  differs  from  the 
ordinary  idiom  only  in  the  elegance  and  refinement  of 
the  words  chosen,  and  in  the  perfect  propriety  with 
which  they  adapt  themselves  to  the  movement  of 
the  verse.  Horace's  principle  is  vindicated  in 
practice ;  the  eloquence  and  lucid  order  of  the 
versification  prove  the  justice  and  universality  of 
the  thought. 


Ill 

POETICAL    DECADENCE 

In  my  last  two  lectures  I  traced  the  conditions  under 
which  Poetry  comes  into  existence  in  the  mind  of 
the  poet,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  clothes  itself 
with  external  form.  I  showed  that  it  was  the 
product  of  the  harmonious  fusion  of  two  contrary 
elements,  the  Universal  and  the  Individual.  By  the 
universal  element  I  mean  what  we  often  call  by  the 
name  Nature  :  whatever  is  furnished  naturally  to  the 
poet's  conception  by  forces  outside  himself;  the 
sources  of  inspiration  springing  from  the  religion, 
tradition,  civilisation,  education  of  the  country  to 
which  he  belongs ;  the  general  mental  atmosphere  of 
the  age  in  which  he  lives ;  the  common  law  of  the 
language  in  which  he  composes.  By  the  individual 
element  I  mean  what  we  usually  call  Art ;  including 
all  that  is  contributed  by  the  genius  of  the  poet,  and 
that  helps  to  constitute  the  characteristic  form  or 
mould  in  which  the  universal  idea  is  expressed. 

I  shall  in  my  present  lecture  go  further,  and  try 
to  pursue  the  course  of  Life  in  Poetry  in  the  history 
of  the  art,  because  the  Art  of  Poetry  has  a  life  of  its 


90  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


own,  exactly  aualogous  to  the  life  of  individual  men 
and  of  States,  proceeding  from  infancy  to  maturity 
and  from  maturity  to  decay.  Great  poetry  of  any 
kind  is,  as  a  rule,  produced  within  certain  well-defined 
periods  of  a  nation's  history,  and  the  culminating 
point  in  every  such  kind  of  poetry  is  reached  by  a 
gradual  ascent  to  the  work  of  some  great  repre- 
sentative or  classic  poet.  When  this  point  has  been 
reached  we  generally  find  an  equally  regular  course 
of  declension,  represented  by  poets  not  without  genius, 
but  whose  work  is  always  characterised  by  certain 
common  defects,  which  denote  the  exhaustion  of  the 
art  and  give  warning  of  its  approaching  end. 

In  the  Greek  epic,  for  example,  Homer,  marking  the 
zenith  of  the  art,  has  for  his  successors  the  literary 
composers  of  the  Alexandrian  period ;  and  these 
again  have  their  epigoni  in  poets  like  the  Pseudo- 
Musseus.  In  the  history  of  the  Attic  drama,  the 
movement  of  decline  begins  almost  insensibly  with 
Euripides,  but  proceeds  with  increasing  speed  in 
Agathon  and  other  tragedians,  whose  names  Time 
has  not  cared  to  preserve.  Pastoral  poetry  has  still 
to  be  invented,  but  the  epigrammatists  of  Alex- 
andria are  the  only  representatives  left,  after  the 
fourth  century,  of  all  the  lyric  singers  of  the  free 
Greek  cities ;  and  thus  by  degrees  the  voice  of  Greek 
poetry  dies  into  silence.  Latin  epic  poetry  declines 
from  the  height  to  which  it  has  been  raised  by  Virgil, 
through  Lucan  to  Statins,  from  Statins  to  Claudian, 
from  Claudian  to  nothingness.  The  English  poetical 
drama,    culminating    in    Shakespeare,  moves    down- 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  91 

ward  to  Massinger,  and  expires  in  the  rhyming 
tragedies  of  Dryden  and  Lee.  The  ethical  and 
didactic  poetry  of  England,  arriving  at  its  grand 
climacteric  in  Pope,  shows  a  dwindling  force  in 
Johnson  and  Goldsmith,  and  reaches  its  last  stage 
of  senility  in  the  sounding  emptiness  of  Erasmus 
Darwin. 

Now,  this  law  of  progress  and  decline,  which  is 
common  to  all  the  fine  arts,  may,  I  think,  be  formulated 
as  follows.  In  the  infancy  of  poetry  or  painting  the 
universal  element  of  life  predominates  over  the  in- 
dividual; men's  imaginative  conceptions,  as  we  see 
in  the  work  of  Giotto  and  Chaucer,  are  stronger  than 
their  powers  of  technical  expression.  In  the  maturity 
of  art  there  is  a  perfect  balance  of  the  two  opposing 
elements,  as  shown  in  the  works  of  Raphael  and 
Sophocles  and  Shakespeare.  In  the  decadence  of 
art,  the  individual  overbalances  the  universal :  we 
come  to  the  stage  either  of  insipid  mannerism,  ex- 
emplified in  the  paintings  of  Carlo  Dolci  and  the 
poetry  of  Rogers  ;  or  of  violent  exaggeration,  such  as 
we  find  in  the  pictures  of  Michael  Angelo  Cara- 
vaggio,  and  in  tragedies  like  those  of  Seneca  and 
Nathaniel  Lee. 

I  shall  ask  you  therefore  to  consider  the  symptoms 
that  betoken  the  decline  of  poetry  from  its  culminat- 
ing point ;  and  I  shall  take  my  illustrations  from 
different  periods,  which,  by  universal  critical  consent, 
are  periods  of  decadence.  The  subject  is  indeed  a 
vast  one,  but  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  establish  the 
truths  which  I  am  anxious  to  impress  upon  you,  by 


92  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


presenting  the  matter  in  three  aspects :  (l)  The 
Decline  of  the  Universal  in  Ages  of  Poetical  Decad- 
ence. (2)  The  Exaggeration  of  the  Individual  in 
such  ages,  (3)  The  Abdication  by  Society  of  its 
right  of  judgment  in  questions  of  Poetry  and  Art. 

(1)  As  regards  the  Decline  of  the  Universal,  the 
most  vivid  examples  of  this  phenomenon  are  furnished 
by  the  history  of  Greek  poetry,  because  the  Greek 
genius  was  so  comprehensive  that  there  was  no  form 
of  poetical  expression  in  which  it  did  not  produce 
work  of  the  highest  excellence.  Let  us  in  the  first 
place  make  our  observations  on  the  ground  of  the  Greek 
drama.  Probably  few  critics  would  care  to  contest 
the  opinion  that  the  culminating  point  of  Greek 
tragedy  is  to  be  found  in  the  (Edii^us  Rex,  and 
indeed  the  reason  for  this  is  plain.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  Greek  drama  the  universal  predominated 
strongly  over  the  individual.  Every  one  who  listens 
to  me  knows  that  the  form  of  Greek  drama  was 
worked  out  almost  instinctively  by  means  of  a  union 
between  the  Greek  myths  and  the  Chorus,  which  was 
the  original  mouthpiece  of  the  worship  of  Dionysus. 
Now,  the  essence  of  the  drama  lies  in  the  exhibition 
of  action  ;  but,  even  as  late  as  the  time  of  ^schylus, 
the  religious,  or  didactic,  or  universal  element  in 
tragic  conception  was  so  powerful  that,  in  plays  like 
the  Agamemnon  and  the  Eumenides,  though  the 
course  of  the  action  is  well  defined,  the  Chorus  seems 
to  be  a  more  important  part  of  the  whole  structure 
than  the  actors  themselves.  In  the  CEdipus  Rex,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  is  a  perfect  balance  between 


LECT.  in  POETICAL  DECADENCE  93 

Nature  and  Art ;  the  moral  of  the  play  is  expressed 
mainly  by  means  of  the  action.  Pity  and  terror  are 
aroused  by  the  tragic  order  in  which  the  events  are 
made  to  succeed  each  other ;  the  elevation  to  which 
the  hero  is  raised  by  his  genius  and  wisdom  before 
the  great  TreptTveTeia  to  which  he  is  exposed ;  the 
irony  which  makes  the  whole  horror  of  the  situation 
apparent  to  the  spectators,  while  the  person  most 
afl'ected  remains  unconscious  of  the  truth  ;  the  crash 
of  ruin  in  which  he  is  involved  by  the  antecedent 
sins  of  others  rather  than  by  his  own — all  this  is  as 
much  in  accordance  with  the  Greek  sense  of  religion 
as  are  the  doctrines  of  the  Chorus  in  the  trairedies  of 
iEschylus  ;  and  it  is  more  in  harmony  with  the  nature 
of  the  drama  as  a  form  of  poetic  art. 

But  when  we  come  to  Euripides,  with  whom 
begins  the  period  of  tragic  decadence,  the  state  of  the 
ideal  atmosphere  has  manifestly  changed.  Poet  and 
audience  have  both  lost  much  of  their  old  religious 
belief,  and  this  mental  chano^e  brings  with  it  a 
corresponding  change  in  the  form  of  the  drama.  The 
Chorus,  no  longer  the  natural  mouthpiece  of  the 
universal  feeling  of  awe  and  reverence,  dwindles  into 
a  mere  instrument  for  the  invention  of  new  melodies  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  the  story  is  not  arranged  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  out  the  ideal  significance  of  the 
situation,  but  to  display  the  poet's  ingenuity  in  tlie 
construction  of  his  plot,  or  some  other  kind  of  artistic 
cleverness.  And  this  tendency  was  doubtless  strongly 
developed  by  Agathon,  who,  if  there  is  any  truth  in 
Aristophanes'  representation  of  him  in  the  Thesmo- 


94  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


phoriazusaCy  must  have  been  a  typical  representative 
of  those  who  follow  art  for  art's  sake. 

Let  us  next  turn  to  the  Greek  epic,  and  contrast 
the  work  of  its  maturity  and  decadence  as  illustrated 
respectively  in  the  Iliad  and  the  ArgonaiLtica  of 
Apollouius  Rhodius.  One  of  the  most  striking 
characteristics  in  Homer's  poetry  is  the  richness  and 
variety  of  its  materials,  the  universal  nature  of  its 
interest.  The  poet  is  at  once  a  theologian,  a  states- 
man, a  moralist,  and — observe  this  particularly — a 
painter.  There  is  scarcely  an  object  in  nature  which 
he  does  not  represent ;  and  yet  so  perfect  in  him  is 
the  balance  between  the  universal  and  the  individual, 
that  each  of  his  conceptions  is  placed  in  its  just 
relation  for  the  purposes  of  art.  Those  exquisite 
touches  of  pathos,  seeming  to  spring  instinctively  out 
of  the  narrative ;  those  lofty  strokes  of  rhetoric,  so 
proper  to  the  occasion ;  those  detailed  descriptions 
which  embody  the  very  genius  of  painting — all  is 
adapted  to  elevate,  to  humanise,  to  relieve  the  pro- 
gress of  the  action. 

How  different  is  the  case  with  Apollonius  Rhodius  ! 
The  master  from  whom  Virgil  learned  so  much  was  no 
mean  poet ;  but  in  him  whatever  is  excellent  comes 
scarcely  at  all  from  the  universality  of  human  interest 
which  abounds  in  the  Iliad:  almost  everything 
depends  on  the  ingenuity  of  the  artist.  I  do  not 
remember  in  the  Argonautica  a  single  passage  of  deep 
natural  pathos,  a  single  general  reflection  or  observation 
universally  true,  a  single  effort  of  soul-stirring  rhetoric. 
All  these  elements  have  disappeared  from  the  life  of 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  95 

the  epic  ;  what  remains  to  it  is  the  genius  of  painting. 

Apollonius's  descriptions  are  admirable,  whether  he 

exerts  himself  to  paint  the  external  symptoms  of  love 

in  Medea,  or  to  heighten  a  scene  of  romantic  adventure. 

As  a  specimen  of  his  powers  in  the  latter  class  take 

his  description  of  Medea  hypnotising  the  snake  that 

guarded  the  Golden  Fleece,^  which  may  be  translated 

thus  : 

When  to  his  ears  the  sweet  enchantment  came, 
A  languor  shuddered  through  the  serpent's  frame. 
Through  all  his  length  the  soothing  influence  rolled, 
And  loosed  the  spiry  volumes  fold  on  fold  ; 
As  swells  a  single  wave  mid  Ocean's  sleep. 
Sullen  and  soundless,  through  the  stagnant  deep : 
Yet,  though  the  powerful  charm  benumbed  the  rest. 
High  o'er  the  ground  up-towered  his  grisly  crest : 
Wide  gaped  his  jaws  to  seize  their  prey.     But  now 
The  dauntless  maiden  dipped  her  charmed  bough 
In  the  fell  broth,  and  on  his  eye-balls  flung 
The  magic  dew,  and,  while  she  sprinkled,  sung ; 
Till,  'neath  the  charming  voice  and  odours  shed 
From  the  drugged  potion,  sank  the  languid  head. 
And  through  the  trunks,  inert  and  brown  as  they. 
The  lifeless  coils  stretched  rood  on  rood  away. 

This  reminds  one  of  Turner's  picture  of  Apollo 
killing  the  Python.  It  is  the  work  of  a  great  painter. 
And  yet  how  inferior  to  Homer  is  Apollonius  even  on 
his  own  ground !  Homer  will  often  stand  still  to 
breathe  his  imagination,  in  the  midst  of  his  rapid 
narrative,  by  elaborating  a  simile  beyond  what  is 
required  for  the  likeness  itself ;  but  he  never  does 
this  without  making  the  simile  really  illustrate  the 
action.     For  instance,   he   illustrates  his  account  of 

'  Argonautica,  book  iv.  149-161. 


96  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Agamemnon  watching  the  mustering  of  the  troops  of 
the  two  Ajaces  by  the  following  simile  :  "  As  when 
from  a  rock  a  herdman  sees  a  cloud  coming  over  the 
sea  before  the  blast  of  the  west  wind,  and  as  he 
stands  afar  off,  it  seems  to  be  rushing  across  the  sea 
blacker  than  pitch,  carrying  with  it  a  mighty  whirl- 
wind ;  as  he  looks  he  shudders,  and  drives  his  flock 
under  a  cave."^ 

Apollonius  admired  and  imitated  Homer's  manner 
of  painting  :  he  is  even  more  picturesque' than  Homer 
himself ;  but  there  is  this  diff'erence  between  them,  that 
the  poet  of  Alexandria  introduces  similes  that  do  not 
illustrate  anything,  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  painting. 
Here  is  a  characteristic  example.  "  As  when  a  sun- 
beam plays  on  the  side  of  a  house,  reflected  from  water 
which  has  just  been  poured  into  a  cistern,  or  perhaps 
a  pail :  hither  and  thither  it  dances  on  the  quick  eddy  ; 
even  so  " — What  ?  "  even  so  the  maiden's  heart  in 
her  breast  was  tossing,  and  tears  of  pity  flowed  from 
her  eyes."^  Or  take  this,  which  is  still  more 
elaborate :  "As  when  a  poor  working  woman  heaps 
straws  under  a  burning  log,  while  she  is  at  her  task 
of  spinning  wool,  that  she  may  make  a  blaze  for  her- 
self at  night  beneath  her  roof,  waking  betimes ;  and 
the  flame  rising  wondrously  from  the  little  log  con- 
sumes all  the  straw."  A  very  charming  and  pathetic 
picture  !  But  what  do  you  suppose  this  poor  working 
woman  is  like  ?  Strange  to  say,  like  Medea  in  love  ! 
"Even  so,"  says  the  poet,  "beneath  her  breast  cruel 
love  burned  always   secretly,   and    he   changed   her 

^  Iliad,  book  iv.  275.  -  Argonautica,  book  iii.  756-761. 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  97 

tender   cheek    from   red    to   pale    by    reason    of  the 
anguish  of  her  mind."  ^ 

Now,  to  measure  the  decay  of  the  universal  in 
Greek  epic  poetry  by  a  positive  standard,  the  best 
way  is  to  compare  this  kind  of  thing,  which  is 
really  the  best  that  Apollonius  Rhodius  can  give, 
with  the  contrast  between  the  eloquence  of  Menelaus 
and  Odysseus  as  described  by  Antenor.  You  may 
feel  the  greatness  of  Homer  in  Pope's  version : 

When  Atreus'  son  harangued  the  listening  train, 

Just  was  his  sense,  and  his  expression  plain, 

His  words  succinct,  yet  full,  without  a  fault. 

He  spoke  no  more  than  just  the  thing  he  ought  : 

But  when  Ulysses  rose,  in  thought  profound. 

His  modest  eyes  he  fixed  upon  the  ground  ; 

As  one  unskilled  or  dumb,  he  seemed  to  stand. 

Nor  raised  his  head,  nor  stretched  his  sceptred  hand ; 

But  when  he  speaks,  what  elocution  flows ! 

Soft  as  the  fleeces  of  descending  snows, 

The  copious  accents  full,  with  easy  art, 

Melting  they  fall,  and  sink  into  the  heart.- 

Thus  we  find  in  Greek  poetry  the  drama 
declines  and  disappears :  the  epic  declines  and 
disappears.  For  a  moment  you  have  a  flash  of  fine 
inventive  genius  in  the  Idylls  of  Theocritus.  But 
where  does  Theocritus  go  for  his  invention  ?  Though 
the  inspiration  of  poets  in  the  great  days  of  Greek 
art  proceeded  essentially  from  civic  sources,  Theo- 
critus has  to  go  into  the  country,  and  to  refresh  the 
jaded  imagination  of  the  eft'ete  Alexandrians  with  the 
rustic  melodies  of  shepherd  life. 

>  ArgonatUica,  book  iii.  291-298.  '^  liiafl,  book  iii.  213. 

H 


98  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


At  last  there  is  no  distinctive  form  of  poetry  left 
to  the  Greek  muse  but  the  epigram.  I  am  tempted 
to  linger  for  a  moment  over  this  form  of  the  Greek 
poetic  genius :  there  is  something  in  it  so  beautiful, 
so  brilliant,  and  so  tasteful,  that,  even  at  the  very- 
last,  it  seems  wrong  to  think  of  decay  in  connection 
with  the  immortal  freshness  of  the  race.  On  what- 
ever subject  Greek  epigrams  are  written,  they 
contain  a  touch  of  poetry  or  graceful  ingenuity  that 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  similar  work  of  any  other 
people.  Who  does  not  feel,  for  example,  the 
Universal  in  the  epigram  assigned  to  Plato  ? — 

dcTTepa^  u(TaOpe?'i,  a.(TTijp  e/xos '    etOe  yevoifJLi^v 
ov/aavos,  cos  TroAAots  op^fxacriv  el<i  (re  jSkeiro). 

Dost  gaze  on  stars,  my  star  ?     That  I  might  be 
Yon  heaA^en,  to  gaze  with  myriad  eyes  on  thee ! 

Or  in  the  beautiful  and  deeply  pathetic  elegy 
of  Callimachus  on  the  poems  of  his  dead  friend 
Heracleitus  ? — 

ttTTc  Tts   HpaKXeiTe  reov  {xopov,  c?  &  fj.€  SaKpv 
rjyayiv,  i/xvi'jcrdrjv  8    ocroraKis  dp,<f)OT€poL 

i^Aior  €V  Xi<r)(^r)  KUTcSwra/xei',  aAAa  cru  [Xiv  ttov 
^eiv    AXiKapvacrcrev  TerpaTraXai  ctttoSi^' 

al  81  Teat  ^(oovctlv  ar^Sove?  yo-tv  o  TravTWV 
upTraKTrjp   Ai87ys  ovk  ctti  X^^P^  fSaXei. 

They  told  me,  Heracleitus,  you  were  dead : 
Tears  filled  my  eyes,  to  think,  in  days  long  fled. 
How  oft  we  two  talked  down  the  sun  ;  but  thou, 
Halicarnassian  friend,  art  ashes  now  !  ^ 

^  I  have  a  vague  recollection  of  having  seen  the  rendering  of  this  couplet 
somewhere,  but,  if  I  have  taken  it  from  anybody,  I  cannot  discover,  after 
long  search,  to  whom  I  owe  it. 


LECT.  HI  POETICAL  DECADENCE  99 

Yet  live  thy  nightingales,  and  on  that  band 
All-robbing  Death  shall  never  lay  his  hand. 

In  the  vein  of  pure  wit,  the  following  is  probably 
unmatched : 

>(/3ixr6v  dvrjp  evpibv  eAivrev  l3p6\ov,  avTap  6  ^^pvfrov 
ov  A,i7r€v  ov)(^  evpujv  T]^(.v  ov  €vpe  f^po^ov. 

I  doubt  if  any  other  language  could  tell  the  story 
so  naturally  and  pointedly  in  two  lines.  Ausonius 
gives  it  in  four,  in  order  to  make  the  situation  clear, 
and,  even  with  this  license,  his  version  is  extremely 
flat  and  prosaic.^     Dr.  Johnson's  rendering  is  clever  : 

Hie  aurum  ut  reperit,  laqueum  abjicit,  alter  ut  aurum 
Non  reperit  nectit  quern  reperit  laqueum. 

But  his  "alter  ut  aurum  non  reperit"  is  not  so 
clear  as  the  Greek,  and  he  avoids  a  difficulty  by 
putting  all  his  verbs  into  the  present  tense.  The 
following  is  the  best  I  can  make  of  it  in  English : 

Tom  meant  to  die,  but,  finding  gold,  found  for  his  noose  no 

use  ; 
But  Dick,  his  gold  who  could  not  find,  used  what  he  found, 

the  noose. 

But  when  all  is  said,  such  clear-cut  and  perfect 
jewels  of  individual  thought  do  not  compensate  us 
for  the  loss  of  the  spontaneous  treasures  of  creative 
imagination,  poured  forth  by  the  Greek  mind  in  the 
great  days  of  its  liberty,  like  gold  brought  down  on 
the  stream  of  the  Pactolus. 

'  Tlifsauro  iiivcnto  qui  liniina  iiiortiH  iiiihat 
Liquit  ovHiis  laqueum  quo  jxiiturus  erat. 
At  ijui  quod  terra  alxlidcrat  non  reppcrit  aurum 
Quern  laqueum  iuvenit  ne.xuit  et  periit. 


loo  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Not  essentially  different  is  the  lesson  derived  from 
the  history  of  Latin  poetry.  The  Roman  genius — or 
at  least  the  art — of  poetry  rises  in  an  ascending  scale 
from  Lucretius  and  Catullus  to  Virgil,  from  whom 
it  moves  in  a  declining  course  through  Lucan  to 
Ausonius.  In  Lucretius  there  is  an  abounding 
source  of  native  energy,  a  rush  and  volume  of  in- 
spiration which  almost  swallows  up  art,  though  of 
this,  as  Cicero  says,  there  are  many  traces  in  the 
De  Rerum  Natura.  Something  of  the  Universal, 
something  of  poetic  energy,  had  been  consciously 
lost  even  in  Virgil's  time,  as  we  see  from  his  com- 
plaint at  the  opening  of  the  third  Georgic  : 

Cetera  quae  vacuas  tenuissent  carmine  mentes 
Omnia  jam  vulgata. 

But  Virgil  knew  how  to  repair  the  loss ;  and 
having  selected  such  a  truly  Roman  theme  as  the 
Georgics,  he  produced,  in  his  treatment  of  it,  that 
complete  balance  between  the  Universal  and  the 
Individual  which  Lucretius  had  failed  to  attain. 
When  we  come  to  Ausonius,  on  the  contrary, 
we  find  that  the  universal  element  has  almost 
vanished :  there  is,  for  example,  in  his  very  charming 
poem  on  the  Moselle,  as  compared  with  the  Georgics, 
a  loss  of  poetical  life  almost  exactly  analogous  to 
that  which  occurs  in  Greek  poetry  between  the 
period  of  Homer  and  the  period  of  ApoUonius.  The 
Georgics  are  full  of  beautiful  pictures,  but  they  are 
also  full  of  the  genius  of  Roman  action,  and  of  the 
Roman    imperial    spirit ;    while    the   poem    on    the 


POETICAL  DECADENCE 


Moselle  depends  for  its  charm  entirely  on  its  land- 
scape-painting. 

I  come  to  our  own  country.  Did  time  permit 
it  would  be  easy  to  show  in  detail  that  an  exact 
parallel  exists  between  the  rise  and  decline  of  the 
poetical  drama  in  Athens  and  in  England.  In 
England,  as  in  Athens,  the  idea  of  tragedy  arose 
out  of  the  religion  of  the  country.  Shakespeare's 
tragedies  are  a  direct  development  of  the  miracle 
plays  and  moralities,  just  as  the  tragedies  of  ^Eschylus 
and  Sophocles  are  the  final  results  of  the  evolution 
of  the  drama  from  the  rude  exhibitions  given  by 
Thespis  at  the  festival  of  Dionysus.  The  history  of 
the  tragic  principle  is  the  same  in  England  and  in 
Greece.  In  the  Attic  drama  the  universal  underlying 
idea  of  the  greater  tragedians  is  Misfortune,  necessarily 
entailed  on  families  and  peoples  by  the  curse  of  heredi- 
tary sin  :  this  idea  was  derived  from  the  popular 
myths  on  which  the  drama  was  founded.  In  the 
Shakespearian  tragedy  the  fundamental  idea  is  Mis- 
fortune, brought  about  by  the  weakness  and  corruption 
of  the  human  will ;  and  this  idea  of  conflict  between 
good  and  evil,  the  natural  product  of  the  Christian 
faith,  was  also  the  central  principle  determining  the 
action  of  all  the  ancient  miracle  plays  and  moralities. 
It  may  be  said  therefore  to  be  the  universal  idea  of 
tragedy  in  the  mind  of  the  English  people,  and,  in  one 
shape  or  another,  it  survived  on  the  English  stage  so 
long  as  the  poetical  drama  continued  to  flourish. 
When  the  stage  was  revived  after  the  Restoration,  this 
fundamental  idea  had  vanished  as  a  motive  of  tragedy. 


I02  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Plays  were  then  written  to  embody  some  abstract 
idea  of  romantic  love,  or  honour,  or  absolute  mon- 
archy, favoured  by  the  Court,  but  not  indigenous  in 
the  mind  of  the  people.  The  universal  element  in 
the  poetic  drama  was  extinct ;  and  the  poetic  drama 
itself,  having  no  root,  withered  away. 

It  is  the  same  with  our  epic  poetry.  The  English 
idea  of  epic  action  was  composite,  made  up  of  many 
contrary  elements  —  ecclesiastical,  chivalric,  civic, 
Christian  and  Pagan — and  it  was  long  before  these 
elements  could  find  the  right  form  of  organic  ex- 
pression. We  see  them  trying  to  struggle  into 
poetic  life  in  the  Faery  Queen,  a  jDoem  which  is 
overflowing  with  imaginative  matter ;  but  they  fail 
to  assume  in  it  a  perfectly  consistent  and  intelligible 
shape ;  the  English  epic  does  not  settle  into  its  ideal 
unity  until  a  mould  is  found  for  it  in  Paradise  Lost, 
where  all  the  elements  treated  by  Spenser  are  mixed 
with  each  other  in  such  right  proportion  that  the 
just  poetical  balance  is  attained.  After  Milton,  the 
universal  idea  of  the  epic  so  rapidly  dwindles  that 
it  has  no  exponent  in  English  poetry  but  Sir  Richard 
Blackmore,  who,  as  Dryden  says,  "  wrote  to  the 
rumbling  of  his  chariot  wheels." 

(2)  I  pass  on  to  consider  the  second  symptom  of 
poetical  decadence,  namely  the  exaggeration  of  the 
individual  element,  which  is  the  necessary  result  of 
the  decline  of  the  universal.  As  the  sense  of  poetry 
dwindles  in  society  at  large,  as  people  less  and  less 
care  for  and  believe  in  what  is  beyond  and  above 
themselves,  the  poet  endeavours  more  and  more  to 


I.ECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  103 

fill  up  the  gap  in  imagination  by  novelty  in  art. 
Observe  how  this  was  the  case  on  the  stage  at 
Athens.  It  is  evident  that  neither  Euripides  himself 
nor  a  very  considerable  portion  of  his  audience 
cared  anything  for  the  myths  which  formed  the 
subject  of  the  tragic  drama,  except  in  so  far  as  they 
provided  a  groundwork  of  supposed  fact  on  which  plays 
could  be  artistically  constructed.  The  moral  sentiment 
counted  for  nothing ;  what  Euripides  wanted  above 
all  things  was  a  subject  that  had  not  been  treated  in 
poetry  before.  Hence  he  chose  just  those  myths  for 
representation  which  his  greater  predecessors  had  left 
untouched,  and  he  defended  his  practice  on  the 
ground  that  he  was  only  representing  realities.  You 
know  how  ^schylus  deals  with  his  argument  in  TJie 
Frogs.     Euripides  asks  (I  use  Frere's  translation) : 

But  after  all  what  is  the  horrible  mischief  ? 

My  poor  Sthenobceas,  what  harm  have  they  done  1 

^-Eschylus  replies : 

The  example  is  folIoAved,  the  practice  has  gained, 
And  women  of  family,  fortune,  and  worth, 
Be^vildered  with  shame,  in  a  passionate  fury, 
Have  poisoned  themselves  for  Bellerophon's  sake. 

Euripides :  But  at  least  you'll  allow  that  I  never  invented  it ; 
Phaedra's  aflair  was  a  matter  of  fact. 

yEschylus :  A  fact  with  a  vengeance  !  but  horril>le  facts 

Should  be  buried  in  silence,  not  bruited  abroad, 
Nor  brought  forth  on  the  stage,  nor  emblazoned  in 

poetry. 
Children  and  boys  have  a  teacher  assigned  them  ; 
The  bard  is  a  master  for  manhood  and  youth, 
Bound  to  instruct  them  in  virtue  and  truth, 
Beholden  and  bound.  ^ 

'  Aristophanes,  Rancr,  10-19-1057. 


I04  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

Euripides  agaiu,  if  he  chose  an  old  myth,  cast 
about  in  all  directions  for  a  new  way  in  which  to 
treat  it.  iEschylus  and  Sophocles  roused  pity  and 
terror  by  the  ideal  nature  of  the  tragic  situation  : 
Euripides  sought  to  rouse  the  feeling  of  compassion 
by  stage  effects,  making  his  characters  poor  and 
lame,  dressing  them  in  rags,  and,  generally  speaking, 
reducing  the  myth  as  far  as  possible  to  the  level  of 
actual  life.  He  endeavoured  also  to  attract  attention 
and  excite  wonder  by  novelties  of  thought  and  ex- 
pression, making  his  dramatis  personae  say  things 
which  he  knew  would  shock  the  prejudices  of  the 
majority  of  his  audience,  and  would  please  the 
cultivated  and  clever  minority:  "Who  knows  whether 
living  is  not  the  same  as  dying  ? "  "  The  tongue 
swore,  but  the  mind  remained  unsworn,"  and  the 
like. 

Still,  when  all  is  said,  Euripides  was  a  great  poet, 
and  his  art  was  kept  within  due  bounds  by  the  sense 
of  the  Universal  still  surviving  in  his  audience.  If  we 
wish  to  study  the  exaggeration  of  the  Individual  in 
poetry,  the  most  striking  examples  of  it  are  to  be 
found  in  the  plays  of  Seneca.  All  Seneca's  plays 
are  founded  on  Greek  myths ;  and  of  course  these 
myths  were  in  themselves  nothing  to  him  :  they  did 
not  in  any  way  form  part  of  the  Roman  conscience ; 
moreover,  his  plays  were  never  meant  for  acting ; 
hence  the  sole  motive  of  their  composition  was  his 
desire  to  match  himself  as  a  poet  with  the  tragedians 
of  Athens,  and  to  do  something  in  tragedy  which 
they   had  not  done.       Observe    then   how  he   goes 


POETICAL  DECADENCE 


to  work.  In  his  Phaedra  he  enters  into  com- 
petition with  Euripides.  Euripides,  though  he  over- 
stepped due  bounds  in  the  selection  of  the  subject, 
treated  it  with  tragic  instinct,  and  invested  the 
character  of  Phaedra  in  his  Hippolytus  with  dignity 
and  nobility.  Seneca  aimed  solely  at  giving  an 
exhibition  of  frenzied  female  passion,  and  his  re- 
presentation of  Phaedra's  character  is  so  horrible  that 
I  cannot  use  it  for  the  purposes  of  illustration. 
Again,  in  his  Oedipus,  Seneca  matches  himself  with 
Sophocles,  and  of  course  the  result  is  still  worse. 
You  can  imagine  for  yourselves  the  lengths  to 
which  exaggeration  carries  him  from  the  single  fact 
that,  after  the  awful  ireptireTeia  in  the  story,  he 
positively  ventures  to  imagine  a  meeting  and  a 
dialogue  between  (Edipus  and  Jocasta.  In  the 
Trachiniae  Sophocles  represents  the  terrible  death  of 
Hercules  by  means  of  a  poisoned  garment,  which  has 
been  sent  to  him  by  Deianira,  under  a  misconception. 
The  hero  in  the  midst  of  frightful  suffering  meets 
his  end  with  manly  resolution ;  but  all  that  Sophocles 
makes  him  say  is — I  use  the  excellent  translation  of 
Mr.  Lewis  Campbell : 

Stubborn  heart,  ere  yet  again 
Wakes  the  fierce  rebound  of  {uiin. 
While  the  evil  holds  aloof, 
Thou,  with  bit  of  diamond  proof, 
Curb  thy  cry,  with  forced  will 
Seeming  to  do  gladly  still. 

In  his  Hercules  Oetaens,  Seneca  supposes  that  the 
garment   was    sent   to   Hercules    by   Deianira   in    a 


io6  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


moment  of  mad  jealousy.  His  mother  Alcmena  ex- 
horts him  to  die  with  fortitude,  to  which  the  hero 
makes  the  following  reply  :  "If  Caucasus  exposed  me 
to  be  feasted  on  by  the  beak  of  the  greedy  vulture, 
though  all  Scythia  groaned,  no  tear  or  groan  should 
be  wrung  from  me.  If  the  wandering  Symplegades 
should  crush  me  between  their  rocks,  I  would  flinch 
not  from  the  dread  of  each  returning  shock.  Let 
Pindus  fall  upon  me,  and  Hsemus,  and  Athos  who 
breaks  the  Thracian  waves,  and  Mimas  shaking  off" 
the  thunderbolt  of  Jove.  Nay,  mother,  though  the 
world  itself  should  fall  upon  me,  and  on  the  world 
the  chariot  of  Phoebus  all  in  flames  should  fire  my 
couch,  no  coward  shriek  should  subdue  the  will  of 
Hercules.  Let  ten  thousand  wild  beasts  descend  and 
rend  me  all  together.  Let  the  Stymphalian  bird  on 
one  side  with  fierce  yells,  and  on  the  other  the  bull 
with  all  the  terrors  of  his  neck  batter  me ;  let  all  the 
monsters  Earth  breeds  and  dreadful  Sinis  hurl  them- 
selves on  my  limbs.  Though  I  be  dragged  in  pieces 
I  will  keep  silence."^  But  if  he  means  to  keep 
silence,  why  so  many  words  ?  Absence  of  inspiration, 
exaggeration  of  art ! 

It  will  suffice  if  I  give  you  one  more  example  of 
the  exaggerated  art  which  arises  out  of  the  exhaustion 
of  nature.  It  is  perfectly  plain  that  both  Dante  and 
Cowley  derive  their  poetical  ideas  from  the  same 
source,  namely,  the  Scholastic  Philosophy,  though 
one  wrote  when  that  philosophy  had  reached  its 
zenith,  and  the  other  when  it  was  in  the  last  age  of 

J  Hercules  Oetaeus,  1378-1396. 


POETICAL  DECADENCE  107 


decline.  Each  of  these  poets  makes  use  of  objects  of 
sense,  in  order  to  convey  to  the  mind  of  the  reader 
an  image  of  some  unseen  spiritual  form  of  life. 
Dante  gives  his  reason  for  this  practice,  which  is  as 
follows :  "  It  is  necessary  to  speak  thus  to  your  wit, 
since  only  from  an  object  of  sense  does  it  apprehend 
what  it  afterwards  makes  the  subject  of  understand- 
ing. Hence  the  Scripture  condescends  to  your 
capacity,  and  attributes  feet  and  hands  to  God, 
meaning  something  else  ;  and  Holy  Church  represents 
to  you  in  human  likeness  Gabriel,  and  Michael,  and 
the  other  who  made  Tobias  whole  acrain."^  See  how 
real  this  universal  belief  makes  Dante's  imagery. 
Describing  the  appearance  of  certain  souls  whom  he 
met  in  the  moon's  sphere,  he  says :  "  As  through 
glasses  transparent  and  polished,  or  through  waters 
clear  and  calm,  not  so  deep  as  to  make  the  bottom 
dark,  the  lines  of  our  faces  are  so  faintly  returned 
that  a  pearl  on  a  white  forehead  comes  not  with  less 
force  against  our  eyes ;  so  saw  I  many  faces  ready  to 
speak."  ^  Judging  these  to  be  reflections,  he  turns 
his  head  behind  him  to  see  the  objects  from  which 
they  proceed  ;  but  Beatrice,  "with  a  smile  glowing  in 
her  holy  eyes,"  explains  to  him  that  these  appearances 
are  true  substances.  Compare  with  this  Cowley's 
description  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  : 

The  sacred  tree  midst  the  fair  orchard  grew  ; 

The  phoenix  Truth  did  on  it  rest, 

And  bixilt  his  perfumed  nest, 
That  right  Porphyrian  tree,  which  did  time  logic  show  : 

*  J'aradLio,  canto  iv.  40.  ■*  /bid.  can  to  iii.  10. 


io8  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Each  leaf  did  learned  notions  give ; 
The  apples  were  demonstrative  : 
So  clear  their  colour  and  divine, 
The  very  shade  they  cast  did  other  lights  outshine. 

Clearly  there  is  nothing  natural  here ;  the  poet 
merely  wants  to  make  a  display  of  his  art — art  which 
is  in  itself  poor,  because  its  mechanism  is  glaringly 
apparent :  nothing  is  required  but  to  think  of  the 
ideas  suggested  by  "tree,"  "leaf,"  and  "apples,"  and 
to  couple  them  in  a  verse  with  the  ideas  suggested  by 
"logic,"  "learned  notions,"  "demonstrations." 

(3)  The  last  symptom  of  poetical  decadence 
which  need  be  considered  is  the  Abdication  by 
Society  of  its  right  of  judgment  in  matters  of  Art 
and  Taste.  In  all  great  periods  of  poetical  produc- 
tion this  right  is  freely  exercised.  Sometimes  the 
people  criticises  in  public,  as  at  Athens,  where  judges 
representing  the  spectators  decided,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
on  the  merits  of  the  dramatists  w^ho  competed  before 
them  for  the  prize.  Sometimes  the  standard  of  taste 
is  determined  by  the  voice  of  a  few  literary  critics 
who  are  felt  to  represent  the  sense  of  the  community, 
men  like  the  Quintilius  Varus  spoken  of  by  Horace, 
who  could  say  to  the  poet,  "  Correct  this  and  that," 
because  as  both  had  the  same  universal  idea  in  their 
minds,  the  critic  could  point  out  to  the  poet  the 
places  in  which  his  expression  fell  short  of  what  was 
ideally  right.  But  when  this  universal  sense  of  law 
in  art  decays,  then  the  average  man  begins  to  doubt 
about  the  truth  of  his  own  perceptions ;  and  the 
strong-willed  artist  introduces  such  novelties  as  he 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  109 

may  choose.  The  individual  becomes  despotic,  and, 
like  all  despots,  he  instinctively  fortifies  himself 
with  a  bodyguard,  consisting  partly  of  fanatical 
admirers,  partly  of  those  who  find  their  account  in 
imposing  on  the  public. 

This  is  the  origin  of  the  Coterie,  which  in  all 
ages  of  artistic  decline  is  a  powerful  factor  in  direct- 
ing the  fashion  of  taste.  The  poetical  decadence  of 
Greece  enjoyed  a  comparative  freedom  from  the 
plague,  because  the  Greek  genius  was  so  richly 
endowed  that  an  idea  of  truth  and  nature  survived 
the  loss  of  political  liberty ;  yet  in  Alexandria  the 
coterie  of  Callimachus  was  able  to  prevent  Apollonius 
Rhodius  from  obtaining  a  hearing.  The  coterie 
throve  at  Rome  in  the  Silver  Age  of  Latin  Literature  ; 
and  from  the  letters  of  Pliny  the  younger  we  can 
easily  divine  how  the  machinery  of  admiration  was 
prepared  beforehand,  and  worked  by  a  claque  at  the 
public  readings  and  recitations.  When  the  last  of 
the  great  mediaeval  Italian  poets  had  said  his  say,  a 
hundred  literary  academies  began  to  squabble  over 
the  rival  merits  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso.  In  France  the 
decay  of  mediaeval  Romance  was  emphasised  by  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  it  was  cultivated  in  Made- 
moiselle Scudery's  little  literary  circle ;  and  the 
Pr^cieuses  went  on  copying  the  obsolete  fashions  of 
the  Troubadours  till  they  were  extinguished  by  the 
ridicule  of  Moliere.  In  England  the  poetical  barren- 
ness of  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  illustrated  in  the  notorious  coterie  of  Delia 
Crusca,  who,  with  Laura  Maria  and  Anna  Matilda, 


no  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

attitudinised  before  a  gaping  public,  and  fell  at  last 
too  easy  victims  to  the  somewhat  laboured  satire  of 
Gifford. 

This  brings  me  naturally  to  the  conclusion  I 
desire  to  draw  from  my  argument.  You  will  have 
observed  that  all  my  examples  of  poetical  decadence 
have  been  taken  from  the  historic  periods  of  litera- 
ture, and  that  I  have  said  nothinof  about  the  art  and 
poetry  of  our  own  day ;  had  I  attempted  to  do  so  I 
should  have  been  in  fault,  because  that  would  have 
involved  the  assumption  that  we  are  living  in  an  age 
of  artistic  decline.  Whether  this  is  or  is  not  the 
case,  posterity  alone  can  decide  with  certainty ;  but 
meantime  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  we 
should  be  able  to  form  an  opinion  on  the  matter, 
since  we  have  Matthew  Arnold's  authority  for  the 
statement  that  '*  in  poetry,  when  it  is  worthy  of 
its  high  destinies,  our  race,  as  time  goes  on,  will  find 
an  ever  surer  and  surer  stay."  Poetry  which  is  to 
fulfil  a  duty  of  that  kind  must  not  be  of  a  decadent 
order. 

Now  modern  society  finds  itself  face  to  face  with 
this  phenomenon,  that  the  present  creative  tendency 
in  all  forms  of  art  is  opposed  to  tradition.  The 
Preraphaelite  movement  in  English  poetry  and  paint- 
ing ;  the  movement  of  the  Symbolists  in  French 
poetry  ;  the  revolution  effected  by  Wagner  in  German 
music — all  of  which  claim  to  be  the  determining  factors 
in  the  art  of  the  future — agree  in  this,  that  they  have 
broken  with  the  artistic  principles  of  the  past. 
Moreover,   the  ideas  involved    in  these  movements 


POETICAL  DECADENCE  iii 


have  given  rise  to  a  most  interesting  dispute  between 
the  representatives  of  science  and  the  votaries  of  art. 
On  the  one  side  the  artists  say  to  society :  "  There  is 
coming  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  Old  things 
have  passed  away ;  all  things  have  become  new. 
Religion  is  powerless  :  Science  is  '  bankrupt '  " — that 
is  their  phrase :  "  Art  alone,  mystical,  symbolic, 
spiritualistic  art,  can  supply  the  void  in  the  human 
imagination."  On  the  other  side  come  the  men  of 
science,  represented  by  Herr  Max  Nordau,  a  name  of 
European  reputation,  and  they  say:  "Do  not  trust 
these  artists ;  they  are  charlatans,  w^ho,  so  far  from 
being  Apostles  and  Prophets,  are  to  be  classed  as 
*  Mattoides,'  '  Circulars,'  '  Graphomaniacs,'  and  other 
varieties  of  hysterical  patients."  Who  shall  decide 
when  doctors  disagree  ? 

I  confess  that,  when  I  read  Herr  Nordau's  book 
on  "  Degeneration,"  from  which  I  have  extracted 
these  names,  and  which  is  full  of  vigorous  and  viva- 
cious thought  and  admirable  literary  criticism,  I 
thought  that  he  was  intending  to  take  a  humorous 
revenge  on  the  artists,  for  having  called  him  a  member 
of  a  "  bankrupt "  company ;  and  that  he  had  hit  on 
the  happy  device  of  the  philosopher  who,  having 
fallen  into  a  dispute  with  a  voluble  fishwife,  reduced 
her  to  silence  by  calling  her  "  an  isosceles  triangle." 
But  closer  study  showed  me  that  the  book  was  written 
with  true  Teutonic  seriousness.  Frivolous  observers 
may  regard  art  and  poetry  as  the  product  of  mere 
fashion  and  whim.  Not  so  the  man  of  science, 
who  treats  them  as  belonging  to  the  department  of 


112  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


pathology.  "  The  physician,"  says  Herr  Nordau,  "  re- 
cognises in  the  tendencies  of  contemporary  art  and 
poetry,  in  the  style  of  the  creators  of  mystic,  symbolic, 
decadent  works,  and  in  the  attitude  of  their  admirers, 
in  the  aesthetic  impulses  and  instincts  of  fashionable 
society,  a  concurrence  of  two  well-defined  pathologic 
states  with  w^hich  he  is  perfectly  well  acquainted, 
degeneration  and  hysteria ;  the  lower  degrees  of 
which  are  called  neurasthenia." 

Do  you  ask  how  this  is  proved  ?  The  late  M. 
Paul  Verlaine,  the  poetical  chief  of  the  French  sym- 
bolists, wrote  an  Art  of  Poetry,  in  which  he  lays 
down  rules  very  much  opposed  to  those  of  Horace. 
M.  Verlaine's  portrait  shows,  it  appears,  that  the 
shape  of  his  skull  resembles  that  of  the  degenerate 
hysterics  whom  Lombroso  classifies  as  born  criminals. 
What  then  can  be  more  reasonable  than  to  conclude 
that  the  new  French  Art  of  Poetry  is  the  product  of 
hysteria  ?  Again,  in  one  of  his  poems,  M.  Verlaine 
calls  very  frequently  on  the  name  of  the  Virgin.  Of 
course,  says  Herr  Nordau ;  exactly  the  same  symp- 
toms were  noted  by  Dr.  Legrain  in  an  omnibus  driver 
suflering  from  hereditary  mania.  Mr.  Rossetti,  in  a 
ballad,  employs  a  burden,  which  is  certainly  as  sense- 
less as  it  is  ugly,  "  Eden  bower's  in  flower,"  and  "  0 
the  flower  and  the  hour ! "  Clearly,  Herr  Nordau 
thinks,  this  is  a  case  of  echolalia,  a  mode  of  utterance 
which  seems  to  prevail  among  imbeciles  and  idiots. 

Now,  when  these  pathological  methods  of  judg- 
ment are  applied  to  works  of  art,  I  think  we  may 
venture  to  say,  even  to  men  of  science,  Ne  sutor  supra 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  113 

crepidam.  The  methods  are  unscientific.  Unless 
Herr  Nordau  can  prove  that  he  has  followed  all  the 
operations  of  a  poet's  brain  when  he  is  composing,  it 
is  not  scientific  to  couple  his  case  with  that  of  the 
madman  or  idiot,  whose  symptoms  can  be  watched 
in  the  ward  of  a  hospital.  And,  again,  unless  his 
investigations  in  the  history  of  poetry  have  been 
very  much  more  extensive  than  I  imagine,  it  is  not 
scientific  to  ascribe  the  practice  of  a  poet  to  a  physical 
cause,  when  it  may  have  been  the  result  of  mere 
literary  imitation.  Will  Herr  Nordau,  for  instance, 
venture  to  say  that,  when  Shakespeare  introduces 
such  a  line  as,  "  With  hey,  with  hey  I  the  thrush  and 
the  jay !  "  into  a  song,  he  does  so  under  the  influence 
of  hysteria  ?  Or  when  he  finds,  as  he  may,  examples 
of  echolalia  in  the  poetry  of  the  Greeks  and  the 
Romans,  has  he  evidence  to  show  that  these  people 
were  widely  afflicted  with  neurasthenia  ? 

There  is  indeed  something  of  question -begging 
in  Herr  Nordau's  whole  arorument.      "  The  ancient 

O 

Northern  myth,"   says  he,   "  contained  the  frightful 

dogma  of  a  Twilight  of  the  Gods.     In  our  days  the 

finest   imaginations    are    haunted    with    the    sombre 

apprehension  of  a  Twilight  of  Nations,  in  which  sun 

and   stars    are  gradually    extinguished,    and    in    the 

midst   of  a   dying    Nature    men    perish    with    their 

institutions  and  works."     In  other  words,  the  whole 

of  modern  society  is  incurably  afflicted  with  hysteria  : 

hence   all   modern  art  and  poetry  must  necessarily 

reflect  the  universal  disease. 

Conclusions  of  this  kind  are  not  very  respectful 

I 


114  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


to  the  human  race,  to  the  judgment  of  which  even 
men  of  science  must  submit  their  opinions ;  and 
perhaps  they  are  somewhat  premature.  It  may  be, 
of  course,  that  time  will  justify  Herr  Nordau's  fore- 
bodings, and  that  the  historian — if  any  historians  are 
left — will  be  able  to  trace  the  ruin  of  a  perished 
society  to  the  ravages  of  hysteria.  Meantime  we, 
who  live  in  the  present,  are  bound  to  regard  the 
artist,  the  individual  who  receives  pleasure  from  art, 
and  the  organised  body  of  individuals  who  judge  of 
art,  as  responsible  beings,  who  have  as  natural  a  capa- 
city for  deciding  what  is  good  or  bad  in  the  principles 
of  taste  as  for  perceiving  what  is  right  or  wrong  in 
the  practice  of  morals.  And  hence,  when  the  modern 
painters  and  poets  and  musicians  come  to  us,  telling 
us  that  the  principles  of  ancient  art  are  obsolete,  and 
that  they  themselves  can  supply  us  with  new  sources 
of  imaginative  pleasure,  and  even  fill  the  void  caused 
by  the  loss  of  religion,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  dismiss 
them  as  "  mattoides,"  or  "  graphomaniacs,"  or  "  cir- 
culars," even  though  they  may  have  fairly  provoked 
this  kind  of  retaliation  by  speaking  of  the  "  bank- 
ruptcy of  science."  On  the  other  hand,  they  can 
hardly  expect  us  to  accept  their  own  estimate  of 
themselves  without  examination.  We  ought  to  con- 
sider patiently  what  they  have  to  tell  us ;  and  my 
main  object  in  this  series  of  lectures  is  to  suggest  a 
method  of  induction  from  experience  and  observation, 
by  which  society  may  be  able  to  test  the  quality  of 
the  pleasure  which  modern  artists  are  offering  to  our 
imagination. 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  115 

I  have  shown  in  my  earlier  lectures  that  all  poets 
whose  works  have  provided  the  world  with  enduring 
pleasure  have  followed  a  universal  mode  of  concep- 
tion, and  have  conformed  to  certain  invariable  laws 
of  expression.  I  have  shown  to-day  that  the  work 
of  all  poets  produced  in  periods  of  undoubted  de- 
cadence is  distinguished  by  other  characteristics  also 
invariable,  also  universal.  In  support  of  my  argu- 
ment I  have  not  relied  upon  a  single  opinion  that 
has  not  received  the  critical  consent  of  ages,  or  cited 
a  single  fact  that  is  not  capable  of  positive  verifica- 
tion, in  so  far  as  the  subject  admits  of  this.  I  think 
therefore  that,  in  judging  of  the  value  of  any  modern 
poem,  I  have  the  right  to  infer  that,  in  so  far  as  it 
is  conceived  or  expressed  in  a  manner  fundamentally 
difierent  from  the  great  living  poems  of  the  world,  it 
is  unlikely  to  contain  the  principle  of  enduring  life  ; 
while  in  so  far  as  it  reproduces  those  particular 
features  we  have  been  considering  to-day,  it  is  in  all 
probability  the  fruit  of  poetical  decadence. 

Let  me  apply  this  test,  as  a  crucial  instance,  to 
the  principles  and  practice  of  modern  P'rench  poetry, 
because  in  France,  as  is  usual,  the  leaders  of  the  new 
School  of  Art  defend  their  innovations  on  the  ground 
of  logic.  Speaking  of  right  aim  in  poetry,  M.  Mal- 
larme,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  French  symbolists, 
says :  "  To  name  an  object  is  to  destroy  three-quarters 
of  the  enjoyment  of  a  poem."  From  this  we  see  that 
the  new  school  of  Poetry  agrees  with  the  old  school 
in  holding  that  the  end  of  poetry  is  to  produce 
pleasure  for  the  imagination ;    but  if  M.  Mallarmd's 


ii6  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 


words  mean  anything,  they  must  mean  that,  when 
Homer  named  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  or  Milton  the 
loss  of  Eden,  as  the  subjects  of  their  poems,  these 
poets  at  once  destroyed  three-quarters  of  the  pleasure 
that  their  art  might  have  produced.  M.  Mallarme 
goes  on  to  say :  "  The  true  goal  of  poetry  is  sugges- 
tion. Symbolism  consists  in  the  artistic  employment 
of  this  mysterious  principle ;  in  evoking,  little  by  little, 
an  object,  so  as  to  indicate  a  state  of  soul,  or,  con- 
versely, to  choose  an  object,  and  to  disentangle  from 
it  a  state  of  soul  by  a  series  of  decipherings." 

This,  you  may  say,  is  a  little  obscure.  But  we 
may  divine  M.  Mallarme's  meaning  from  M.  Paul 
Verlaine's  Art  Poetique,  a  poem  containing  very 
many  charming  ideas  that  could  have  occurred  only 
to  a  man  of  genius,  however  perversely  that  genius 
may  have  been  employed.     He  says  : 

II  faut  aussi  que  tu  n'ailles  point 
Choisir  tes  mots  sans  quelque  m^prise  : 
Rien  de  plus  cher  que  la  chanson  grise, 
Oil  rind6cis  au  Precis  se  joint. 

Cast  des  beaux  yeux  derriere  des  voiles, 
C'est  le  grand  jour  tremblant  de  midi, 
C'est  par  un  ciel  d'automne  atti6di, 
Le  bleu  fouillis  des  claires  etoiles  ! 

Car  nous  voulons  la  Nuance  encor, 
Pas  la  Couleur,  rien  que  la  nuance  ! 
Oh  !  la  nuance  seule  fiance 
Le  reve  au  reve  et  la  llute  au  cor ! 

I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  what  M.  Verlaine 
meant  by  these  last  two  lines  :    probably  he  would 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  117 

have  admitted  that  he  did  not  know  himself.  But 
the  drift  of  his  advice  is  quite  intelligible.  Like 
M.  Mallarme,  he  says,  "Do  not  choose  definite 
subjects :  what  we  want  in  poetry  is  not  expression 
but  suggestion  ;  neutral  tints,  not  positive  colours." 
His  Art  Poetique  is  therefore  naturally  opposed  to 
the  Ars  Poetica  of  Horace  : 

Cui  lecta  potenter  erit  res 
Nee  facundia  deseret  hunc  nee  lueidus  ordo. 

M.  Verlaine  would  maintain  that  Horace's  principle, 
"  Denique  sit  quidvis  simplex  duntaxat  et  unum," 
would  not  produce  the  effect  that  he  himself  desired. 
Nor  would  it ;  but  why  ?  Because  Horace  and 
M.  Verlaine  each  aim  at  producing  pleasure  of  a 
different  kind.  Horace  aims  at  pleasing  the  imagina- 
tion with  ideas,  at  creating  an  illusion  of  organic 
ideal  life,  outlined  with  all  the  clearness  of  sculpture, 
but  animated  with  the  breath  of  human  sympathy. 
M.  Verlaine  and  M.  Mallarme  seek,  by  means  of 
metrical  language,  to  evoke  moods  of  the  soul. 
Horace  strives  to  produce  pleasure  that  may  satisfy 
the  philosopher ;  the  pleasure  desired  by  M.  Verlaine 
is  the  intoxication  of  the  opium-eater.  A  poetical 
idea  is  enjoyed  as  a  thing  of  beauty  by  one  generation 
after  another,  semper,  uhique,  ah  omnibus ;  the 
mood  of  the  individual  soul  evaporates  with  the 
fumes  of  the  intellectual  drug  by  which  it  is  called 
into  being. 

The  French  symbolists  are  therefore  opposed  to 
the  classical  poets  both  in  their  ends   and   means  ; 


ii8  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


but  these  are  in  full  accord  with  the  ends  and  means 
of  the  poets  of  decadence.  For  observe  that  their 
symbolism  is  quite  of  a  different  kind  from  that 
of  Dante,  who,  perhaps  above  all  other  poets,  aimed 
at  the  facundia  and  lucidus  ordo  desired  by 
Horace.  Dante's  symbolism  was  based  on  the 
scholastic  philosophy,  when  that  system  was  univers- 
ally accepted  as  the  key  to  the  interpretation  of 
Nature.  When  this  philosophy  ceased  to  satisfy 
the  intellect,  then  it  also  lost  its  poetical  power,  and, 
as  we  see  from  the  lines  of  Cowley  I  have  already 
cited,  fell,  for  poetical  purposes,  into  complete  decay. 
Modern  symbolism  or  mysticism,  which  aims  in 
poetry  at  suggestion  rather  than  expression,  is  in 
reality  identical  with  the  taste  for  enigmas  and 
obscure  thought  represented  in  the  style  of 
Lycophron  of  Alexandria,  surnamed  6  arKoreivo^, 
whose  Cassandra  is  composed  with  a  riddle  in  every 
line.  And  who  that  is  not  a  German  now  knows 
anything  of  Lycophron  except  his  name  ? 

Again,  one  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  great 
classical  poets,  like  Sophocles  and  Virgil,  is  their 
reticence  and  reserve.  The  chief  characteristic  of 
poetical  decadence,  as  we  see  in  Seneca,  is  lawlessness 
in  the  choice  of  subject  and  violence  of  expression. 
M.  RoUinat,  who  is  said  to  enjoy  a  high  reputation 
among  his  countrymen,  is  probably  one  of  the  few 
poets  in  the  world  who  can  boast  of  having  surpassed 
Seneca  in  these  qualities.  Here  are  the  titles  of 
some  of  his  poems  :  Buried  Alive ;  TTie  Soliloquy 
of    Tropmann;     Putrefaction;     Rondeau    of    the 


LECT.  Ill  POETICAL  DECADENCE  119 

Guillotined;  and  the  following  is  the  only  quotable 
portion  of  a  composition  describing  the  embalming 
of  a  dead  woman's  body :  "To  snatch  the  dead 
one,  fair  as  an  angel,  from  the  cruel  kisses  of  the 
worm,  I  caused  her  to  be  embalmed  in  a  strange 
box.  It  was  a  night  in  winter."  Then  the  whole 
process  of  embalming  is  minutely  painted. 

One  more  example  will  suffice.  All  great  classic 
poetry  reflects  in  an  ideal  way  the  active  life  of  the 
society  in  which  it  is  composed.  The  Iliad  breathes 
in  a  heroic  style  the  spirit  of  Greek  warfare, 
^schylus,  who  fought  at  Marathon,  Sophocles,  who 
served  as  a  general  with  Pericles,  fill  their  tragedies 
with  the  patriotic  sentiment  of  their  age :  the  old 
Attic  comedy  found  its  matter  in  contemporary  social 
interests :  Shakespeare's  chronicle  plays  popularise 
half  the  history  of  England  :  the  satires  of  Dryden 
and  Pope  are  the  monuments  of  once  living  manners. 
But  the  French  symbolists — whose  aim  it  is  to  evoke 
moods  of  the  soul — dread  nothing  so  much  as  any 
form  of  social  activity.  "  Art  for  Art's  sake  ! "  is 
their  cry.  There  is  something  pathetic  in  the 
earnestness  with  which  M.  Charles  Morice,  the  chief 
philosopher  of  the  school,  utters  his  lamentations 
over  the  exacting  tyranny  of  public  duties.  "  To 
think,"  he  cries,  "  that  the  poet  should  be  obliged  to 
break  off*  in  the  middle  of  a  stanza  in  order  to  go 
and  complete  a  period  of  twenty-eight  days'  training 
in  the  army  !  "  Poor  fellow  !  And  again  :  "  The 
agitations  of  the  streets ;  the  grinding  of  the 
Government  machine ;  journals  ;    elections  ;    changes 


LIFE  IN  POETRY 


of  administration — never  has  there  been  such  a 
hubbub ;  the  turbulent  and  noisy  autocracy  of 
commerce  has  suppressed  in  public  preoccupations 
the  preoccupation  of  Beauty ;  and  trade  has  killed 
whatever  might  have  been  allowed  by  politics  to  live 
on  in  silence."  One  feels  sad  as  one  thinks  of  the 
happiness  and  quietism  which  might  have  been  the 
lot  of  this  forlorn  soul  in  some  other  period  of 
poetical  decadence.  We  imagine,  for  example,  that 
he  might  have  obtained  from  one  of  the  Ptolemies, 
say  in  the  second  century  B.C.,  the  post  of  sub- 
librarian at  Alexandria,  and  we  fancy  him  com- 
posing some  afternoon,  in  a  cool  portico,  without  any 
interruption  from  the  drill-sergeant,  the  pentameter 
of  the  epigram  which  he  had  begun  in  the  morning. 
Or  he  might  have  lived  at  Rome  under  the  placid 
reign  of  Domitian,  free  from  all  such  disturbance  as 
the  clamour  of  a  vulgar  newsboy,  bawling  over  the 
Palatine  the  latest  stages  of  a  ministerial  crisis, 
and  breaking  in  on  his  preoccupation,  as  he  put 
together  some  tuneful  trifle  on  a  Greek  subject,  or 
prepared  for  public  recitation  a  flattering  elegy  on 
Caesar's  pet  bear. 

I  have  confined  my  observations  to  the  modern 
French  School  of  Poetry,  because  I  find  there  the 
philosophy  of  a  widespread  movement  put  forward 
in  the  most  frank  and  lucid  form.  But,  in  fact, 
the  features  which  this  school  presents  are  repeated 
with  variations  in  the  contemporary  literature  of 
every  country  in  Europe.  For  the  moment,  at  least, 
life   in  poetry  is  no  longer  looked  for  in  that  per- 


POETICAL  DECADENCE 


feet  balance  between  the  universal  and  individual 
elements  which  is  the  essence  of  all  classical  art.  The 
aim  of  the  poet  is  not  now  to  create  the  natural  in 
the  sphere  of  the  ideal,  the  image  of 

Nature  to  advantage  dressed, 
What  oft  was  thought  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed. 

The  essence  of  Life  in  Poetry  and  in  all  the  arts, 
according  to  the  new  philosophy,  is  Novelty.  And 
whence  are  the  sources  of  this  new  life  to  be  derived  ? 
The  answer  is,  that  each  of  the  arts  is  to  borrow 
some  principle  from  the  others ;  the  painter  aims  at 
effects  which  have  hitherto  been  attempted  only  by 
poetry ;  the  poet  devotes  his  efforts  to  imitate  in 
words  ideas  which  are  more  naturally  expressed 
by  means  of  forms  and  colours,  or  indefinable 
emotions  like  those  which  are  aroused  by  the  notes 
of  music ;  the  musician  tries  to  combine  with  the 
resources  of  his  own  art  the  beauties  peculiar  to 
poetry  and  painting.  I  do  not  deny  that,  when  these 
experiments  are  made  by  men  of  genius,  the  artistic 
result  produced  is  often  striking,  and  for  a  time  even 
pleasurable.  But  when  it  is  claimed  by  the  pioneers 
of  the  new  movement — by  the  brotherhoods,  the 
societies,  the  coteries,  which  organise  their  efforts 
to  impose  the  new  doctrines  on  the  taste  of  a  be- 
wildered world — that  this  confusion  of  the  boundaries 
of  art  is  the  beginning  of  a  fresh  and  vigorous 
outburst  of  artistic  life,  experience  says,  No  !  The 
things  that  are  being  attempted  arc  as  old  as  civilised 
society.       The    poet  -  musician    who    endeavours    to 


122  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


create  a  new  kind  of  pleasure,  by  combining  on  the 
stage  the  principles  of  poetry,  painting,  and  music, 
is  only  doing  what  was  done  two  thousand  years  ago 
by  Agathon  and  the  late  Attic  tragedians.  The  poet 
who  exalts  the  element  of  painting  inherent  in  his 
art  above  the  principle  of  action  is  following  the 
example  of  Apollonius  Rhodius.  The  poet  who  tries 
to  attract  attention  to  himself  by  an  ideal  repre- 
sentation of  extravagant  and  unnatural  passion  is 
modelling  himself  upon  Seneca.  And  Agathon,  and 
Apollonius  Rhodius,  and  Seneca,  are  all  poets  of 
decadent  ages. 

Now,  if  we  are  living  in  an  age  of  poetical 
decadence,  it  is  a  very  serious  matter,  and  questions 
arise  which  urgently  demand  an  answer.  Is  this 
decadeuce  confined  to  the  genius  and  methods  of  the 
poets  themselves  ?  or  does  it  extend  to  the  taste  of 
that  portion  of  society  which  the  poets  are  specially 
anxious  to  please?  or  does  it  imply  a  failure  of 
the  sources  of  life  in  the  nation  at  large  ?  These 
are  problems  of  the  profoundest  interest,  and  I  shall 
attempt  to  deal  with  them  in  the  lecture  with  which 
I  propose  to  conclude  this  series  —  namely,  on  the 
relations  that  exist  between  the  Life  of  Poetry  and 
the  Life  of  the  People. 


IV 

POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE 

Having  noted  the  symptoms  that  universally  ac- 
company poetical  decadence,  and  having  observed 
the  appearance  of  many  of  these  symptoms  in 
the  poetry  of  every  country  of  modern  Europe,  I 
asked,  with  practical  reference  to  the  contemporary 
poetry  of  England,  whether  this  decadence  had  its 
sources  merely  in  the  art  itself;  whether  it  was 
the  result,  as  Herr  Nordau  seemed  to  think, 
of  the  decay  of  society ;  or  whether  it  was  due 
to  some  transitory  conditions  of  taste  which  might 
be  removed  by  the  influx  of  fresh  elements  of 
imaginative  life.  Before  1  attempt  to  answer 
these  questions,  let  me  consider  an  initial  ob- 
jection which  has  been  made  to  my  treatment  of 
the  subject.  A  writer  in  the  Spectator — whom  I 
take  to  be  the  same  courteous,  but  somewhat  un- 
sympathetic critic  who  previously  censured,  without 
understanding,  my  use  of  the  word  "  imitation  "  in 
defining  Poetry — says  :  "  We  may  say  that  the  very 


124  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


same  poet,  and  sometimes  even  a  great  poet  like 
Goethe,  has  had  both  a  fresh  and  a  decadent  period 
in  his  own  poetry."  In  illustration  of  his  point  the 
critic  cites  Scott's  lines,  "  To  a  Lock  of  Hair,"  and 
observes :  '*  This  passionate  outpouring  of  Scott's 
momentary  despair  should  show  us  how  dangerous  it 
is  to  trace  what  seems  to  be  decadence  in  any  one 
poet  to  general,  social,  and  political  causes.  We 
never  know  whether  that  which  drives  one  poet  into 
artificial  and  morbid  strains,  into  histrionic  attempts 
to  simulate  passions  which  he  does  not  really  feel, 
may  not  drive  another  into  those  "  fresh  woods  and 
pastures  new  "  which  renew  a  decadent  world.  Scott 
became  the  originator  of  a  great  and  healthy  litera- 
ture through  an  attack  of  melancholy  due  to  a 
personal  grief" 

Now  of  this  I  am  afraid  I  must  say  that  the  critic 
has  made  no  attempt  to  understand  the  sense  of  my 
terms  or  the  nature  of  my  argument.  I  have  no- 
where used  the  word  "decadence"  as  signifying  the 
decay  of  poetical  power  in  the  individual  poet  as  com- 
pared with  himself  Had  I  done  so,  I  should  doubt- 
less have  committed  myself  to  many  a  proposition  as 
utterly  incapable  of  proof  as  the  assertion  that  "  Scott 
became  the  originator  of  a  great  and  healthy  literature 
through  an  attack  of  melancholy  due  to  a  personal 
grief"  I  have  put  forward  no  opinion  in  these 
lectures  which  does  not  appear  to  me  to  be  established 
by  history  and  experience.  The  subject  of  them  has 
been  "  Life  in  Poetry."  By  these  words  I  mean  the 
qualities  in  poetry,  whatever  they  are,  whencesoever 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  125 

they  are  derived,  which  have  the  power  of  producing 
enduring  pleasure  ;  and  I  have  attempted  to  ascertain 
their  nature  by  examining  the  works  of  poets  who 
have  been  acknowledged,  semj^er,  ubique,  ah  omnibus, 
to  be  the  living  poets  of  the  world.  By  "  Decadence 
in  Poetry  "  I  mean  poetical  work  which,  though  it  may 
have  qualities  capable  of  exciting  temporary  pleasure 
and  admiration,  has  not  sufficient  vitality  to  continue 
to  produce  pleasure  for  posterity  ;  and  here,  again,  I 
have  endeavoured  to  arrive  at  positive  conclusions  by 
investigating  the  qualities  of  poets  who  are  admitted 
to  be  the  representatives  of  recognised  periods  of 
poetical  decline.  Whether  my  conclusions  are  right 
or  wrong  can  be  determined  only  if  my  critics  will 
condescend  to  examine  what  my  terms  and  arguments 
really  mean,  and  will  deal  with  them  on  their  own 
ground. 

Using  the  word  "  decadence,"  then,  in  the  sense 
in  which  I  have  been  using  it  all  along,  inductive 
criticism  will,  I  think,  furnish  us  with  a  decided 
answer  to  the  first  of  the  questions  I  have  proposed. 
Experience  makes  it  probable  that  the  symptoms  of 
decadence  in  contemporary  art  and  poetry  are  pro- 
duced, not  simply  by  a  failure  of  imaginative  power 
in  artists  and  poets,  but  by  the  exhaustion  of  some 
active  principle  of  life  in  society  at  large.  There  is, 
in  the  first  place,  the  fact  that,  in  all  previous  periods 
of  poetical  decadence,  artistic  decline  has  proceeded 
j)ari  passii  with  political  decline.  The  decline  of 
Greek  poetry  began  with  the  decline  of  the  Greek 
city  states  towards  the  close  of  the  Peloponnesian 


126  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


War :  the  decline  of  Latin  poetry  advanced  with 
increased  speed  after  the  death  of  Augustus,  when 
the  life  of  the  old  Republic  dwindled  away  under  the 
Caesars :  the  decline  of  the  distinctive  forms  of 
mediaeval  poetry  became  rapid  after  the  Council  of 
Trent,  when  the  principles  of  Catholicism  and  Feudal- 
ism had  also  lost  much  of  their  vitality. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  evident  that  this  joint 
failure  of  social  and  imaginative  life  proceeds  from  a 
common  moral  cause.  The  highest  form  of  social 
activity  is  reached  when  a  state  finds  the  true  balance 
of  Liberty  and  Authority  :  the  highest  form  of  Life 
in  Poetry  consists  in  the  harmonious  fusion  of  the 
universal  and  individual  elements  of  imagination  :  in 
other  words,  when  the  individual  poet  embodies  the 
general  consciousness  of  society  as  to  what  is  sublime 
and  pathetic,  noble  and  beautiful,  in  some  organic 
ideal  creation  which  seems  to  be  a  true  imitation  of 
nature.  In  both  cases  the  just  equilibrium  is  obtained 
by  obedience  to  laws  above  the  will  of  the  individual 
and  the  majority  of  the  moment,  which  laws  consti- 
tute the  sources  of  life  in  society  itself.  The  greatest 
artists  have  shown  themselves  well  aware  of  this 
connection  between  the  ^^o?  or  characteristic  life  of 
the  people  and  the  life  of  art ;  hence  ^schylus  and 
Sophocles  are,  each  in  their  own  way,  profoundly  con- 
servative in  matters  of  faith  and  morals ;  they  regard 
the  legendary  and  traditional  religion  of  the  State  as 
something  established,  something  not  to  be  touched  with 
profane  hands,  but  to  be  exalted  and  sanctified  by  all 
the  ennobling  powers  of  poetry  ;  hence,  too,  the  bitter 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  127 

criticisms  of  Aristophanes  on  the  analytical,  sceptical, 
and  individualising  methods  of  Euripides,  to  whom 
nothing  was  sacred  that  gave  him  an  opportunity  of 
displaying  his  own  cleverness.  We  may  conclude, 
then,  with  confidence  that  whatever  failure  of  life 
may  be  observed  in  modern  art  and  poetry  is  con- 
nected with  some  failure  of  life  in  the  people. 

But  the  answer  to  the  second  question,  namely, 
whether  this  decadence  in  art  proceeds  from  the 
decadence  of  society  as  a  whole,  is  far  more  complex 
and  difficult,  and  cannot  be  given  with  the  confidence 
which  is  expressed  in  some  quarters.  No  man  alive 
is  in  a  position  to  view  modern  civilisation  from  the 
heights  on  which  Gibbon  surveyed  the  Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  Koman  Empire  ;  no  inhabitant  of  contem- 
porary Europe,  certainly  no  Englishman,  can  look  on 
the  life  of  his  own  country  as  Machiavelli  did  on  the 
life  of  Florence,  and  say,  "  Virtue  has  passed  away 
from  us."  Experience  is  wanting.  For  if  we  look  to 
the  civilisations  of  Greece  and  Kome  we  see  that  the 
conditions  of  public  life  in  those  communities  were 
quite  different  from  our  own.  Then  the  Law  and 
Religion  of  the  State  were  inextricably  blended  with 
the  life  of  the  individual,  and  when  the  77^09  of  the 
State  decayed  there  was  no  power  of  recovery ;  in  a 
moral  sense,  the  community  and  the  individual, 
liberty  and  art,  all  degenerated  together.  But  in 
modern  European  civilisation  the  sources  of  public 
life  are  far  more  numerous ;  religious  life  is  not  so 
completely  fused  with  political  life  as  in  the  states 
of  antiquity.      International  Life  and  Law  are  pre- 


128  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

served  by  the  rivalry  of  evenly-balanced  nations ;  in 
each  nation  the  antagonistic  interests  of  separate 
classes  help  to  keep  alive  the  activity  of  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole.  Beyond  this,  the  moral,  social, 
and  intellectual  life  of  each  Christian  nation  is  re- 
cruited by  the  art  and  civilisation  of  the  Pagan  world. 
Hence  the  fountains  of  national  life  are  less  easily 
exhausted  in  modern  than  in  ancient  times,  and  even 
if  the  symptoms  of  modern  Poetry  indicate  decadence 
in  the  art,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  also  the 
imaginative  reflection  of  general  and  inevitable  social 
decline. 

All  through  the  history  of  England,  for  example,  we 
see  a  tendency  in  the  life  of  the  nation  to  concentrate 
itself  in  some  particular  part  of  the  constitution,  or 
in  some  particular  class,  which  becomes  for  the  time 
being  the  sovereign  power,  rallies  round  itself  all  the 
faculties  of  the  people,  represents  them  to  the  world, 
and  at  last  falls  into  a  state  of  exhaustion.  Thus,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  centre  of  English  national 
life  was  undoubtedly  the  Crown.  The  Crown,  acting 
through  the  Court,  was  the  main  instrument  in  trans- 
forming the  manners  of  the  nation  in  the  period  of 
transition  from  feudal  custom  to  civil  law  and  order. 
The  Crown,  through  the  Episcopacy,  was  the  means 
of  regulating,  retrenching,  and  defining  the  external 
modes  of  religious  life  rendered  necessary  by  the 
separation  of  England  from  the  Papacy.  The  Crown 
was  also  the  protector  of  the  infant  commerce  of  the 
nation,  and  its  defence  against  all  the  foreign  powers 
that  menaced  its  independence.     And  yet,  while  all 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  129 

things  seemed  to  make  for  the  establishment  of 
Absolutism,  the  onward  movement  of  national  life 
was  exhausting  the  power  of  the  Crown,  as  the  cocoon 
which  guards  the  chrysalis  disappears  when  it  has  pre- 
pared the  organism  for  a  new  era  of  existence. 

English  poetry  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  is  but  the  imaginative  reflection  of  the  active 
movement  in  the  heart  of  the  nation,  and  exhibits  in 
itself  that  remarkable  phenomenon  of  simultaneous 
Decadence  and  Revival  which  seems  to  perplex  the 
critic  of  the  Spectator,  to  whom  I  have  before  alluded. 
He  observes,  for  instance,  that  Cowley,  who  was 
certainly  a  poet  of  Decadence,  was  also  a  contempor- 
ary of  Milton  ;  and  he  asks,  therefore,  rather  triumph- 
antly, How  can  you  speak  of  an  age  which  produced 
Milton  as  being  an  age  of  Decadence  ?  The  answer 
is  obvious.  As  far  as  the  poets  of  the  seventeenth 
century  in  England  embodied  simply  and  solely  the 
exhausted  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  to  that  extent 
theirs  was  an  age  of  Decadence.  Donne  was  a  con- 
temporary of  Shakespeare  ;  and  yet  almost  all  the 
motives  of  Donne's  poetry  are  of  a  decadent  order, 
because  he  fixed  his  attention  mainly  on  the  waning 
scholastic  principle  in  the  national  life,  instead  of  on 
the  active  civic  principle  ;  and  just  in  the  same  way 
Cowley  went  on  vainly  clothing  his  thoughts  in  feudal 
and  mediaeval  forms,  while  Milton,  breathing  into  his 
soul  all  that  was  energetic  and  life-giving  in  the  social 
atmosphere  about  him,  was  qualifying  himself  to  re- 
produce this  in  the  organic  epic  form  of  Paradise  Lost. 

Carry  on   this   idea  of  the    intimate   connection 

K 


130  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

between  national  life  and  national  poetry  into  the 
periods  following  the  Revolution  of  1688,  and  you 
will  see  that  it  helps  to  explain  the  changes  of  taste 
in  the  imagination  of  the  people.  Look  at  the  history 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  feudal  Monarchy  has 
disappeared  :  the  aristocratic  families  of  England  have, 
to  a  very  great  extent,  taken  the  place  of  the  Mon- 
archy as  the  governing  power  in  the  country  :  the 
semi- Catholic  theology  of  the  seventeenth  century  is 
overlaid  by  the  latitudinarian  reasoning  springing 
out  of  the  philosophic  Humanism  of  the  Reformation. 
Does  not  the  characteristic  poetry  of  the  period 
faithfully  correspond  with  the  political,  religious,  and 
social  state  of  things  ?  It  is  not  such  a  great  school 
of  poetry  as  that  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  and 
Milton,  because  it  does  not  embrace  so  many  elements 
of  imagination  ;  it  cuts  out  the  mediaeval  and  romantic 
principles  :  nevertheless,  it  is  thoroughly  successful  in 
fusing  the  universal  springs  of  inspiration  that  remain, 
namely,  the  Humanistic  and  the  National.  The 
imaginative  product  is  those  admirable  pictures  of  life 
and  manners,  and  that  beautiful  and  perfect  form  of 
social  expression,  which  characterise  literary  style  from 
the  times  immediately  preceding  the  Revolution  of 
1688  down  to  the  death  of  Pope.  But  as  these  aristo- 
cratic forms  of  life  are  dependent  mainly  on  but  two 
sources,  the  period  of  aristocratic  decadence  sets  in 
more  quickly  than  was  the  case  with  the  mediaeval 
styles  of  poetry.  The  aristocratic  principle  inspires 
poems  like  the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  the  Epistles  and 
Satires   of   Pope,    and    Tfie   Essay   on   Mari;  it   is 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  131 

still  strongly  felt  in  such  works  as  The  Deserted 
Village  and  The  Traveller ;  but  it  becomes  pompous 
and  grotesque  in  Darwin's  Botanic  Gardeii,  tame  and 
mannered  in  The  Pleasures  of  Hope  and  The 
Pleasures  of  Memory.  Here,  too,  we  see  that  the 
decline  of  the  Classic  style  in  poetry  is  coincident 
with  the  decay  of  aristocratic  supremacy  which  was 
terminated  by  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832. 

This  aristocratic  decline  was  due  to  an  exaggerated 
conception  of  the  principle  of  Constitutional  Order ; 
and  the  exaltation  of  the  principle  of  authority  in 
politics  finds  its  analogy  in  literature,  in  the  predomi- 
nant attention  paid  by  the  aristocratic  writers  of  the 
period  to  correctness  of  style.  The  rise  of  the  Middle 
Classes,  on  the  other  hand — of  the  Classes,  whose  politi- 
cal influence  has,  on  the  whole,  now  been  paramount 
for  more  than  sixty  years — was  characterised  by  a  pas- 
sionate devotion  to  the  principle  of  individual  liberty. 
At  first  allying  themselves  with  the  Whig  section  of  the 
aristocracy,  the  Middle  Classes  advanced  cautiously, 
qualifying  the  principle  of  commercial  liberty,  for 
example,  as  Adam  Smith  did,  with  a  defence  of  the 
Navigation  Laws,  and  contenting  themselves  with 
such  measures  of  Reform  as  might  be  conceded  by 
a  leader  like  Lord  Grey.  But  as  their  political  power 
increased,  each  of  the  sections  of  which  the  Middle 
Classes  are  composed  showed  a  tendency  to  pursue  its 
own  ideal  of  Freedom — Freedom  of  Thought,  Freedom 
of  Speech,  Freedom  of  Trade — without  reference  to 
the  order  of  the  corporate  life  of  the  nation ;  and 
hence  the  general  eflfect  of  national  policy  since  1832 


132  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


has  been  at  once  to  promote  all  the  activities  of 
personal  life — Money-making,  Journalism,  Mechanical 
Invention — and  to  resist  any  interference  on  the  part 
of  the  State  with  the  freedom  of  the  individual. 
The  net  result  of  the  habit  has  been  a  decline  in  the 
influence  of  central  authority. 

Now  it  is  well  worth  observing  what  a  close  rela- 
tionship there  is  between  this  political  tendency  in 
the  history  of  the  INIiddle  Classes,  as  the  governing 
power  of  the  country,  and  the  movement  in  the 
sphere  of  taste  and  imagination  which  has  accom- 
panied it.  Since  the  close  of  the  last  century  the 
main  current  of  taste  has  run  in  strono:  antagonism 
to  the  aristocratic  principles  established  after  the 
Revolution  of  1688.  So  long  as  the  dominant 
motive  of  the  new  school  of  poetry  was,  in  one  form 
or  another,  the  sentiment  of  action  inspired  by  the 
French  Revolution,  the  chief  poets  of  the  early  part 
of  the  present  century,  Byron,  Shelley,  and — when 
he  was  not  misled  by  his  own  theories — Wordsworth, 
sought  mainly  to  amplify  and  extend  universal  modes 
of  poetical  expression  sanctioned  by  generations  of 
usage.  Very  soon,  however,  the  centrifugal,  in- 
dividualising tendencies  of  the  time  disclosed  them- 
selves in  two  theories  of  poetry  which,  while  sharply 
opposed  to  each  other  in  their  results,  were  agreed 
in  placing  the  source  of  Poetry  solely  in  the  mind 
of  the  individual  poet,  and  in  disregarding  the  con- 
tinuity of  tradition  in  the  art  itself.  One  of  these 
was  headed  by  Wordsworth,  who  taught,  first,  that 
the  poet  can  make  all  things  poetical   by  his   own 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  133 

imagination,  and  hence  that  the  selection  of  dis- 
tinctively imaginative  subjects  is  not  essential  in 
poetry ;  secondly  that,  as  the  proper  language  of 
poetry  is  the  language  actually  used  by  simple  men, 
all  traditional  distinctions  between  the  language  of 
poetry  and  the  language  of  prose  are  false  and  arbi- 
trary. The  other  movement  originated  with  Keats, 
who,  shrinking  from  the  forms  of  vulgarity  and  mean- 
ness visible  in  the  actual  life  of  his  time,  sought  for 
the  life  of  poetry  in  abstract  beauty  of  form.  In  both 
directions  there  has  been  a  withdrawal  from  those 
universal  sources  of  imaginative  life  that  inspire  the 
action  of  the  nation,  and  a  corresponding  exaggera- 
tion of  individual  consciousness ;  the  followers  of 
Wordsworth  carrying  Poetry  into  the  sphere  of 
Philosophy,  Analysis,  Psychology,  with  an  almost 
complete  disregard  of  the  universal  requirements  of 
art ;  and  the  disciples  of  Keats  seeking  to  identify 
the  art  of  Poetry  more  and  more  with  the  arts  of 
Painting  and  Music. 

Similar  symptoms,  as  I  showed  in  my  last  lecture, 
manifest  themselves  in  all  historic  periods  of  Poetical 
Decadence.  If  it  be  asked  how  I  connect  these 
symptoms  with  the  characteristic  taste  of  the  Middle 
Classes,  I  answer :  First,  the  impassioned  pursuit  of 
Liberty  has  encouraged  an  enormous  growth  of  self- 
consciousness,  which  accounts  for  the  exaggeration  of 
the  individual  element  in  modern  poetry ;  secondly, 
the  sectional  tendencies  in  the  Middle  Classes  have 
helped  to  disintegrate  that  union  of  primal  forces  on 
which  the  ideal  life  of  the  nation  so  largely  depends ; 


134  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

and   this  accounts   for   the   decay   of  the   universal 
element. 

The  Middle  Classes  have  always  played  a  great  and 
valuable  part  in  English  History  by  balancing  and 
reconciling  conflicting  principles  in  the  nation,  but 
they  have  not  been  themselves  strongly  in  sympathy 
with  any  one  of  these.  The  Middle  Class,  as  such,  has 
been  opposed  to  the  life  of  ecclesiastical  Catholicism 
by  reason  of  its  Puritanic  instincts ;  it  has  been 
opposed  to  the  life  of  Feudalism  in  consequence  of  its 
commercial  instincts  ;  mainly  inspired  by  the  practical 
object  of  the  moment,  it  has  little  sympathy  with  the 
tradition  of  classical  culture  ;  while  its  own  worship  of 
personal  liberty  naturally  tends  to  weaken  the  life  and 
action  of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  Intellectually  eager, 
and  of  a  boundless  private  benevolence,  its  imaginative 
interest  is  excited  by  the  novel  and  curious  rather 
than  by  the  beautiful,  just  as  its  most  practical 
virtues  are  those  which  radiate  from  the  centre  of 
home,  independently  of  the  larger  interests  of  the 
State.  It  is  a  rare  thing  to  find  an  average  English- 
man of  the  Middle  Class  submitting  the  freedom  of 
his  individual  impulses  to  the  control  of  any  reasoned 
ideal,  divine  or  human.  But  this  habit  of  mind 
does  not  take  us  into  the  region  of  the  Universal, 
or  quicken  that  historic  conscience  which  is,  on  the 
one  hand,  an  essential  condition  of  social  order, 
and,  on  the  other,  a  necessary  element  in  the  life 
of  poetry.  And  hence,  now  that  the  Middle  Classes 
find  themselves  confronted  with  collective  ideals  of 
Order   or   Disorder,   opposed   to  .  their   own    notions 


LBCT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  135 

of  Individual  Liberty — the  ideal  of  Socialism ;  the 
aggressive  ideals  of  other  Nations ;  the  ideals  of  the 
Greater  Britain  beyond  our  own  islands — they  are 
bewildered  and  perplexed ;  and  the  exhaustion  of 
their  capital  stock  of  beliefs  reflects  itself  in  the  an- 
archical conflict  of  ideas  embodied  in  contemporary 
Fiction  and  Poetry. 

History,  however,  shows  us  that  the  political  decline 
of  a  single  class  need  not  involve  decadence  in  the 
people ;  and  it  cannot  be  said  that  there  has  been  a  lack 
of  ideals — of  attempts  to  recover  the  idea  of  the  Uni- 
versal in  our  national  life  and  poetry — originated  by 
men  of  genius  with  a  view  of  staying  the  contemporary 
movement  of  imaginative  exhaustion  in  the  Middle 
Class.  I  propose  to  consider  briefly  three  such  ideals, 
because  they  seem  to  me  to  represent  characteristically 
the  main  tendencies  which,  during  the  present  genera- 
tion, have  been  operating  in  the  governing  portion  of 
society ;  and  if  I  examine  them  with  strictness,  and 
even  severity,  I  would  ask  my  hearers  to  believe  that 
it  is  not  because  I  do  not  sympathise  with  much  of 
what  is  proposed,  or  because  I  wish  to  depreciate  the 
genius  of  those  who  propose  it,  but  because  I  am 
trying  to  test  the  adequacy  of  the  one,  arid  the 
authority  of  the  other,  by  a  standard  which  is  above 
and  beyond  that  of  any  individual,  namely,  the  ideal 
life  of  England  itself 

The  first  ideal  which  I  will  consider  was  put 
forward  from  the  midst  of  the  Middle  Class,  and  by 
one  whose  name  is  eminent  among  the  holders  of  this 
Chair ;  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  allude  to  the  ideal  of 


136  LIFE  IN  POETRY  part  ii 

culture  as  defined  by  Matthew  Arnold.  Matthew 
Arnold  enjoys  the  rare  distinction  of  having  been  the 
first  to  oppose  the  imaginative  self-satisfaction  of  the 
Middle  Classes ;  his  portrait  of  Bottles,  as  the  self- 
satisfied  Englishman,  is  in  its  way  a  creation ;  his  play- 
ful vein  was  never  more  happily  employed  than  in 
commenting  on  such  watchwords  as  the  "  Dissidence  of 
Dissent " ;  he  showed  courage  in  criticising  the  self- 
conscious  swagger  of  anonymous  journalism.  Many 
of  his  favourite  phrases,  "Right  Reason,"  "Our  better 
Selves,"  "Perfection,"  seem  to  involve  the  recognition  of 
some  positive  and  universal  standard  of  authority  by 
reference  to  which  the  soundness  of  all  private  ideals 
may  be  tested.  He  uses  language  which  shows  his 
sense  of  the  necessity  of  the  Universal  as  an  element 
in  the  Life  of  Poetry  :  "  We  are  sure,"  he  says,  "  that 
the  endeavour  to  reach  through  culture  the  firm 
intelligible  law  of  things,  we  are  sure  that  the  detach- 
ing ourselves  from  our  stock  notions  and  habits,  that 
a  more  free  play  of  consciousness,  an  increased  desire 
for  sweetness  and  light,  and  all  the  bent  which  we 
call  Hellenising,  is  the  master-impulse  now  of  the  life 
of  our  nation  and  of  Humanity — somewhat  obscurely 
perhaps  for  the  moment,  but  decisively  for  the  im- 
mediate future — and  that  those  who  work  for  this  are 
the  sovereign  educators."  This  sounds  well.  But 
the  moment  these  phrases  are  examined,  it  is  seen 
that  they  have  no  reference  to  the  Universal,  as 
manifested  in  our  English  life,  but  are,  in  fact,  the 
quintessence  of  Individualism,  the  climax  of  Negation. 
The  free  play  of  Consciousness  which  is  recom- 


LEcr,  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  137 

mended  is  in  reality  only  the  analysis  of  Self-Con- 
sciousness. The  idea  of  Perfection  is  derived  from  a 
comparison  of  self  with  the  imperfection  of  one's 
neighbours.  Asked  what  ideal  of  national  action  he 
desires  to  promote,  Matthew  Arnold  replies  :  "  Because 
machinery  is  the  bane  of  politics,  and  an  inward 
working,  and  not  machinery  is  what  we  most  want, 
we  keep  advising  our  ardent  young  Liberal  friends  to 
think  less  of  machinery,  to  stand  more  aloof  from  the 
arena  of  politics  at  present,  and  rather  to  try  and 
promote  with  us  an  inward  working."  In  fact, 
Matthew  Arnold,  in  respect  of  all  that  concerns  life 
and  action,  seems  to  be  in  pretty  general  agreement 
with  that  melancholy  apostle  of  Poetical  Decadence, 
M.  Charles  Morice,  whose  opinions  I  noticed  in  my 
last  lecture.  I  do  not  understand  very  readily 
how  either  Politics  or  Poetry  can  dispense  with  the 
aid  of  machinery.  Of  Poetry  at  any  rate  we  may 
say  that  all  the  great  forms  of  enduring  Poetry,  Epic, 
Dramatic,  Lyric,  are  essentially  based  upon  action  ; 
and  it  is  therefore  a  significant  illustration  of  the 
Individualism,  which  is  a  sign  of  Decadence,  that 
Matthew  Arnold  should  define  Poetry  as  the  Criti- 
cism of  Life. 

Again,  if  we  test  the  ideal  of  self-conscious 
Culture  by  its  practical  results,  we  find  that  it  off'ers 
very  unsatisfactory  remedies  for  those  excesses  of 
Middle  Class  Individualism  which  it  justly  criticises. 
I  know  of  no  more  salutary  corrective  for  the  vanity 
of  the  criticism  which  trusts  solely  to  the  infallibility 
of    its    own   intuitions,    than    a   comparison    of   the 


138  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


principles  recommended  by  Matthew  Arnold  with  his 
practical  application  of  them.  For  example  :  "To 
reach  through  Culture  the  firm  intelligible  law  of 
things."  Think  then  of  Matthew  Arnold's  application 
of  this  principle  to  English  society,  and  "  the  law  of 
things"  which  was  disclosed  to  his  perception;  his  divi- 
sion of  his  own  nation  into  Barbarians,  Philistines, 
and  Populace — could  any  phrases  and  terms  be  found 
to-day  more  esoteric,  more  unmeaning,  more  obsolete  ? 
Or  again :  "  An  increased  desire  for  sweetness  and 
light."  Was  it  sweetness  and  light  that  suggested  to 
Matthew  Arnold's  imagination  the  simile  of  the  three 
Lord  Shaftesburys  ?  Or  :  "  All  the  bent  which  we  call 
Hellenising."  Hellenising,  nevertheless,  was  of  no 
avail  to  prevent  that  fine  and  beautiful  taste  which 
once  embodied  itself  in  The  Scholar  Gipsy  and 
Thyrsis  from  conceiving  and  committing  to  print  the 
following  sentence  :  "From  such  a  spectacle  as  that 
of  poor  Mrs.  Lincoln — a  spectacle  to  vulgarise  a 
whole  nation — aristocracies  undoubtedly  preserve  us ! " 
A  form  of  Culture  which  is  constantly  violating  the 
first  principles  of  good  breeding  will  scarcely  enable 
us  to  renew  the  decadent  life  of  Poetry. 

Another  ideal  of  Life  and  Poetry  is  offered  to  us 
by  Mr.  Swinburne.  Mr.  Swinburne  has,  in  one 
respect,  taken  his  torch  from  the  hand  of  Matthew 
Arnold.  His  is  "  the  bent  which  we  call  Hellenising." 
But  he  understands  the  word  in  a  difi"erent  sense 
from  that  of  his  predecessor.  Hellenising  with  Mr. 
Swinburne  means  ideas  drawn  exclusively  from  the 
fountain  of  the  Classical  Renaissance,  a  tributary  of 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  139 

English  poetry  undoubtedly  full  of  life  and  freshness, 
but  which,  unless  it  is  merged  with  the  other  waters 
of  the  national  imagination,  soon  swells  into  revolu- 
tion. From  the  first  his  most  characteristic  poems 
have  been  those  which,  like  Atalanta  in  Calydo7i, 
have  been  inspired  by  recollections  of  Greek 
mythology  and  the  Greek  drama.  The  effect  of  this 
source  of  inspiration  has  been  to  give  his  genius  great 
largeness  of  idea  and  great  swiftness  of  movement ; 
and  the  influence  of  these  qualities  on  the  art  has 
been  beneficial,  because  they  have  helped  to  deliver 
imagination  from  Wordsworth's  fatal  heresy,  that 
there  is  no  distinction  between  the  diction  of  poetry 
and  the  diction  of  prose.  Mr.  Swinburne  has  done 
more  than  any  living  poet  to  prove  the  intimate  con- 
nection between  Poetry  and  Oratory ;  and  when  he 
lights  on  a  theme  worthy  of  his  genius,  no  man  has 
shown  a  greater  mastery  of  the  traditional  style  of 
English  lyric  verse :  witness  his  very  fine  lines  on 
Greece  in  Songs  before  Sunrise : — 

There  where  our  Eiist  looks  always  to  thy  West, 

Our  mornings  to  thine  evenings,  Greece  to  thee, 
These  lights  that  catch  the  mountains  crest  by  crest, 

Are  they  of  stars  or  beacons  that  we  see  1 
Taygetus  takes  here  the  winds  abreast, 

And  there  the  sun  resumes  Thermopylio  ; 
The  light  is  Athens  where  those  remnants  rest, 

And  Salamis  the  sea-wall  of  that  sea  ; 
The  grass  men  tread  upon 
Is  very  Marathon  ; 
The  leaves  are  of  that  time  unstricken  tree, 

That  storm  nor  sun  can  fret, 

Nor  wind,  since  she  that  set, 


I40  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Made  it  her  sign  to  men  whose  shield  was  she : 

Here,  as  dead  Time  his  deathless  things, 
Eurotas  and  Cephisns  keep  their  sleepless  springs. 

The  weakness  of  Mr.  Swinburne's  ideal  is  that  it 
is  not  drawn  from  the  active  traditional  Life  of  the 
People.  It  was  well  to  replenish  Poetry  from  the 
spring  of  classical  culture,  the  loss  of  which,  under 
the  influence  of  Middle  Class  taste,  was  starving  the 
stream  of  English  poetical  conception,  just  as  the  loss 
of  the  mediaeval  spring  diminished  the  volume  and 
energy  of  the  aristocratic  style  in  the  last  century. 
But  it  was  not  well  to  isolate  the  tributary  of  the 
Renaissance  from  the  current  of  the  national  thought 
and  language,  in  which  it  had  been  historically 
blended  with  other  influences,  and,  by  a  violent  re- 
action from  the  tastes  of  the  Middle  Classes,  to  set 
up  the  ideal  of  Paganism  as  something  opposed  to 
the  ideal  of  Christianity.  The  consequence  of  the 
separation  has  been  that,  though  the  idea  of  the 
Universal  enters  into  Mr.  Swinburne's  poetical  con- 
ceptions, it  is  of  an  abstract  character,  and  does  not 
spring  out  of  the  ^^o?  and  tradition  of  the  people : 
having  its  source  rather  in  the  self-consciousness  of 
the  poet  than  in  the  widely  diff'used  consciousness  of 
society,  it  can  be  apprehended  by  the  intellect,  but 
does  not  often  touch  the  heart.  Mr.  Swinburne's 
abstract  mode  of  poetical  conception  reflects  itself 
vividly  in  his  modes  of  poetical  expression.  His 
verse  is  of  a  fine  oratorical  order,  but  the  oratory  is  of 
a  kind  which  appeals  only  to  those  who  can  follow 
the  train  of  ideas  set  in  motion  by  a  particular  key- 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  141 

note.  Picturesque  phrases,  detached  from  books, 
provide  themes  for  metrical  composition  ;  the  imagery 
of  the  Bible,  separated  from  its  religious  associations, 
is  transferred  into  the  sphere  of  Revolutionary 
politics ;  the  words  employed,  instead  of  being  sug- 
gested by  the  spontaneous  energy  of  thought,  seem 
to  fall  into  their  places  through  some  prearrangement 
of  rhythmical  melody.  But  these  as  I  have  already 
urged  are  methods  better  fitted  for  the  arts  of  Paint- 
ing and  Music  than  for  Poetry,  and  hence  the  pursuit 
of  Abstract  Ideal  Form  seems  a  principle  as  inade- 
quate as  the  Criticism  of  Culture  for  supplying  the 
universal  element  needed  to  counteract  the  decadence 
of  poetical  Life. 

The  poetry  of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling,  on  the  other 
hand,  supplies  many  of  the  elements  of  life  and  action 
which  are  wanting  in  Mr.  Swinburne's  poetry.  Mr. 
Kipling  has  learned  much  from  Mr.  Swinburne  in  the 
way  of  versification — swiftness,  energy,  freedom  of 
style ;  and  he  has  applied  these  qualities  to  subjects 
taken  directly  from  the  life  of  the  people.  Wherever  he 
looks  he  finds  something  to  interest  his  imagination  ; 
his  motto  is  Quidquid  agunt  Jioniines.  Indian  Mytho- 
logy ;  Suttee  ;  the  Parnell  Commission ;  American 
humour ;  elementary  instincts  of  race  and  nation  ; 
the  simple  yet  unerring  intuitions  of  the  Barrack 
room  ;  all  these  supply  him  with  themes  for  verse  ; 
and  he  generally  treats  them  in  the  form  of  the 
Ballad,  often  with  admirable  eff'ect.  Those  of  my 
audience  who  may  have  read  a  poem  called  An 
Imperial  Rescript,  ridiculing  from  the  popular  point 


142  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


of  view  the  nebulous  philanthropy  of  schemes  pro- 
ceeding from  lofty  spheres  in  Germany,  will  recog- 
nise an  almost  unrivalled  genius  for  seizing  and 
reproducing  the  modes  of  thought  characteristic  of 
the  people  in  different  nations.  And  in  the  very  fine 
narrative  poem  called  East  and  West  they  will 
equally  appreciate  the  power  of  an  imagination 
capable  of  translating  the  undying  spirit  of  Chivalry 
into  the  modern  thought  and  language  proper  to  the 
Western  and  Eastern  minds.  The  country  owes  a 
large  debt  of  gratitude  to  Mr.  Kipling  for  reviving 
in  English  poetry  the  spirit  of  manly  action  and 
imperial  enthusiasm  as  a  corrective  of  the  miserable 
pessimism  which  is  the  canker  of  modern  society. 

Still  Mr.  Kipling's  method  of  Poetical  Conception 
and  Expression  has  its  limitations,  which  may  be 
defined  by  saying  that  it  shows  an  imperfect  ap- 
preciation of  the  diff'erence  between  the  Life  of  Verse 
and  the  Life  of  Poetry.  His  work,  if  I  may  borrow 
the  convenient  jargon  of  the  time,  is  that  of  an  Im- 
pressionist ;  and  Metrical  Impressionism  bears  the 
same  relation  to  Poetry  as  Journalism  to  Literature. 
The  life  which  he  seeks  to  embody  in  his  poetry  is 
derived  from  observations  of  the  actual  world  of  sense 
and  experience  rather  than  from  the  world  of  universal 
ideas.  Take  his  conception  of  Romance  for  example. 
He  blames  his  contemporaries  for  not  seeing  that 
there  is  Romance  in  the  working  of  an  express 
train.  But  this  is  to  use  the  word  Romance  in  a 
private  sense,  without  reference  to  its  universal 
historical  meaning,  and  to  ignore  that  craving  for  the 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  143 

Ideal  and  the  Supernatural  which  is  a  fundamental 
instinct  of  the  human  mind.  Again,  in  a  poem 
called  the  Story  of  Ung,  he  seems  to  place  the 
difference  between  the  artist  and  those  whom  the 
artist  seeks  to  please  in  the  artist's  superior  powers  of 
observation  and  exact  imitation ;  he  thinks  that  the 
artist  sees  and  imitates  somethinsj  in  actual  nature 
which  others  do  not  see ;  whereas  the  real  superiority 
of  the  painter  or  the  poet,  if  we  measure  by  the  work 
of  the  highest  excellence,  lies,  as  I  have  already  urged, 
in  the  ability  to  find  expression  for  imaginative 
ideas  of  nature  floating  unexpressed  in  the  general 
mind. 

Mr.  Kipling  has,  quite  logically,  no  belief  in  any 
kind  of  criticism  ;  and  his  ideas  on  the  subject  of  Art 
are  put  forward  in  a  sketch  of  a  critic  in  the  Neolithic 
Age,  which  contains  a  parable  : — 

A  rival  of  Solutre  told  the  tribe  my  style  was  outr6  : 
'Neath  a  hammer  forged  of  dolomite  he  fell ; 

And  I  left  my  views  on  art,  barbed  and  tanged,  below  the 
heart 
Of  a  mammothistic  etcher  at  Grenelle. 

Then  I  stripped  them,  scalp  from  skull,  and  my  hunting  dogs 

fed  full, 
And  their  teeth  I  threaded  neatly  on  a  thong ; 
And  I  wiped  luy  mouth  and  &iid  :  *'  It  is  well  that  they  are 

dead ; 
For  I  know  my  work  is  right  and  theirs  is  wrong." 

But  my  Totem  saw  the  shame ;  from  his  ridge-pot  shrine  he 
came. 

And  he  told  me  in  a  vision  of  the  night, 
"  There  are  nine  and  sixty  ways  of  constructing  tribal  lays, 

And  every  single  one  of  them  is  right." 


144  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


That  is  excellent  and  amusing  verse ;  but  the 
parable  and  its  moral  are  untrue,  both  historically  and 
scientifically.  For  in  the  early  tribal  stage  of  society 
the  poetical  view  of  Nature  is  universal ;  criticism 
does  not  exist ;  the  poet  puts  readily  into  verse  the 
poetical  thoughts  shared  by  all  his  countrymen. 
It  is  when  society  advances,  when  men  begin  to  dis- 
tinguish the  thoughts  that  should  be  expressed  in 
prose  from  the  thoughts  that  are  proper  for  verse, 
that  criticism  seeks  to  discover  the  rules  of  right  and 
wrong.  The  sphere  of  the  Universal  and  Ideal  is 
contracted  by  the  mind  itself,  and  the  task  of  high 
genius  lies  in  finding  out  the  themes  that  are  fitted 
for  poetry,  and  in  clothing  them  with  the  form  of  ex- 
pression adapted  to  their  true  nature.  Of  the  nine 
and  sixty  ways  of  constructing  civil  lays  only  the 
great  classical  poets  of  every  country  know  how  to 
invent  the  way  which  will  continue  to  give  pleasure 
to  the  imagination ;  and,  therefore,  as  I  have  said 
many  times,  it  is  in  the  works  of  the  great  classical 
poets  alone  that  the  law  of  poetry  is  to  be  looked  for. 

The  failure  to  recognise  the  validity  of  this  law  is 
the  weak  point  in  Mr.  Kipling's  poetry.  He  is  not 
careful  in  the  selection  of  his  themes ;  he  does  not 
reflect  on  the  nature  of  the  Universal ;  like  Ung  in 
his  own  poem,  he  has  something  of  a  contempt  for 
the  ideas  of  his  audience.  Consequently  he  often 
fails  in  point  of  expression.  Satisfied  with  his  own 
individual  perceptions,  he  thinks  only  of  embodying 
them  in  a  swift  and  fluent  form  of  verse,  without 
considering  how  they  will  strike  the  judgment  of  the 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  145 

reader ;  hence  his  thoughts  often  lack  distinction, 
and  he  takes  no  trouble  to  choose  out  of  his  vast 
vocabulary  of  popular  words  those  which  are  really- 
adapted  for  the  purposes  of  poetry.  Experience  has 
recently  read  him  a  lesson  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
Universal  in  poetry  which  he  will  doubtless  lay  to 
heart.  He  desired  very  rightly  to  do  honour  to  the 
Canadians  for  the  imperial  aim  of  their  proposed 
financial  legislation,  and  he  thought  to  please  them 
by  a  set  of  verses,  in  which  he  called  Canada  "  Our 
Lady  of  Snows."  But  he  did  not  altogether  please 
them.  The  Canadians,  with  a  just  critical  instinct, 
perceived  that  the  title  of  the  poem  was  not  poetically 
true.  It  was,  in  fact,  an  affectation  borrowed  from 
those  abstract  musical  modes  of  diction  sanctioned  by 
the  example  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  not  having  any  sound 
foundation  in  Nature,  and  lacking  the  simple  dignity 
which  the  occasion  demanded. 

Let  me  now  put  before  you,  as  succinctly  as  I  can, 
the  whole  question  in  the  form  which  the  course  of 
our  argument  has  caused  it  to  assume.  The  most 
marked  characteristic  in  the  contemporary  art  and 
literature  of  every  country  in  Europe,  is  the  pursuit 
of  Novelty  ;  by  which  word  I  mean  not  the  freshness, 
character,  and  individuality,  which  are  essential  to 
every  work  of  genius,  but  the  determination  to  discover 
absolutely  new  matter  for  artistic  treatment,  and  the 
deliberate  rejection  of  those  first  principles  of  taste 
which  the  greatest  artists  have  traditionally  obeyed. 
In  the  art  of  Poetry,  for  example,  the  one  with  which 
we  are  immediately  concerned,  the  modern  artist,  in 


146  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


opposition  to  ancient  practice,  either  ignores  the 
necessity  of  finding  his  groundwork  in  the  selection 
and  conception  of  a  subject  common  to  himself  and  his 
audience,  or  insists  on  his  right  of  treating  his  subject 
without  regard  to  the  public  taste  and  experience. 
Every  one  can  see  for  himself  that  this  is  the  way  in 
which  an  essentially  modern  dramatist  like  Ibsen 
constructs  his  plays.  If  for  the  moment  we  extend, 
with  Aristotle,  the  word  Poetry  so  as  to  include 
fictions  in  prose,  we  observe  that,  in  the  most 
characteristic  form  of  the  Russian  or  French  novel, 
the  aim  of  the  writer,  almost  invariably,  is  to  manipu- 
late a  priori  ideas  so  as  to  illustrate  a  moral  of  his 
own  making — a  structural  method  which  is  opposed 
to  the  tradition  of  story -telling  from  the  days  of 
Boccaccio  downwards. 

Analysis  of  motive,  not  ideal  representation  of 
action,  is,  in  fact,  the  first  principle  of  contemporary 
epic  and  dramatic  composition.  Analysis  has  pene- 
trated even  the  lyrical  mode  of  poetical  expression, 
causing  the  poet  to  look  for  themes  mainly  in  personal 
sentiments  and  opinions,  which  are  as  often  as  not  the 
fruits  of  pessimist  philosophy.  Corresponding  with 
this  revolution  in  the  sphere  of  poetical  conception, 
there  has  been  a  complete  departure  from  traditional 
development  in  the  modes  of  poetical  expression. 
The  modern  versifier  looks  for  words,  phrases,  and 
rhythmical  movements,  as  far  removed  as  possible 
from  the  prevailing  popular  idiom  ;  and  in  pursuit  of 
his  end  he  confuses  the  hitherto  well-defined  boundaries 
between  poetry,  on  the  one  hand,  and  painting  and 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  147 

music  on  the  other,  assimilating  his  practice  wherever 
he  can  to  the  methods  adopted  by  the  professors  of 
those  sister  arts. 

The  question  is  whether  these  strongly  outlined 
features  are  the  signs  of  Life  or  Decadence  in  Poetry. 
The  new  School  of  Poetry  and  its  admirers  say  that 
they  are  the  manifestation  of  an  exuberant  energy, 
and  that  the  art  has  before  it  a  boundless  future  of 
growth  and  productiveness.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
men  of  science,  represented  by  Herr  Nordau,  main- 
tain that  the  fashionable  novelties  of  the  day  are  the 
signs  of  Poetical  Decadence.  But  this  conclusion 
they  arrive  at  from  other  than  aesthetic  premises. 
In  Herr  Nordau's  judgment  the  Decadence  of  Art 
is  only  a  necessary  phase  of  the  general  decay  of 
modern  society  ;  he  holds  that  the  action  of  Imagina- 
tion is  febrile,  affected,  and  unmanly,  because  society, 
exhausted  by  the  wear  and  tear  of  city  life,  has  become 
hysterical,  nervous,  and  corrupt.  Poetical  Decadence 
is  part  and  parcel  of  Social  Degeneration,  and  is,  there- 
fore, to  be  judged  on  the  crudest  pathological  principles. 

Against  this  fatalist  method  of  judgment,  equally 
unscientific  in  its  procedure  and  depressing  in  its 
conclusions,  it  is  necessary  to  protest.  I  agree  with 
Herr  Nordau  in  thinking  that  the  tendencies  of 
modern  Poetry,  Painting,  and  Music  are  indicative  of 
artistic  Decadence  rather  than  artistic  Invention,  since 
they  are  substantially  identical  with  the  characteristics 
that  have  always  presented  themselves  in  historic 
periods  of  artistic  and  social  decline.  But  it  would 
be  unworthy  of  those  who   are  conscious    of  moral 


148  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


freedom  to  believe  that  the  process  of  decay  in  such 
periods  has  followed  an  iron  law  of  destiny,  or  that  we 
are  to-day  the  victims  of  an  imaginative  disease  which 
it  is  beyond  our  power  to  remedy.  The  causes  of 
Poetical  Decadence  are  partly  individual,  in  so  far  as 
they  proceed  from  the  errors  of  the  artist,  partly 
social,  in  so  far  as  they  depend  upon  the  condition  of 
the  public  taste ;  in  both  cases  they  are  moral,  not 
physical,  and  are  therefore  under  our  own  control. 

In  the  individual  artist  decline  of  power  proceeds 
from  a  self-conscious  analysis  which  cuts  off  the  mind 
from  the  great  universal  sources  of  Inspiration,  and 
leads  it  to  feed  upon  itself,  or  to  look  for  the  foun- 
tains of  life  in  the  local  and  transitory  interests  of  the 
moment.  Artistic  vanity  of  this  kind  obtrudes  itself 
in  all  stages  of  society.  Homer  furnishes  us  with  an 
example  of  it  many  centuries  before  the  Christian  era. 
You  may  remember  the  lines  in  which,  in  his  own 
inimitable  incidental  way,  he  describes  how  Thamyris 
lost  the  gift  of  poetry  :  "  The  Muses,"  says  he,  "  meet- 
ing Thamyris  the  Thracian  as  he  went  up  from  CEchalia 
from  the  house  of  Eurytus  the  OEchalian,  made  him 
cease  from  singing.  For  he  made  in  his  boasts 
as  though  he  would  prevail,  even  though  the 
Muses,  daughters  of  aegis-bearing  Zeus,  should  sing 
against  him.  But  they,  being  provoked  to  anger, 
made  him  blind,  and  took  away  from  him  divine  song 
and  made  him  forget  his  minstrelsy."  Thamyris  was 
self-conscious ;  he  was  a  follower  of  Art  for  Art's 
sake ;  enamoured  of  his  own  thoughts,  his  own  skill, 
he  failed  to  understand  that  all  genuine  inspiration 


POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  149 


€omes  to  the  mind  unconsciously,  as  we  have  seen 
that  it  came  to  Scott  when  he  was  meditating  The  Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel.  Homer  and  Milton,  on  the  other 
hand,  show  themselves  reverently  aware  of  this  truth 
when  they  call  on  the  Heavenly  Muse  to  raise  their 
genius  to  the  height  of  their  arguments,  and  submit 
themselves  obediently  to  the  external  laws  of  their  art. 
Self-conscious  vanity  in  the  nineteenth  century  is 
described  by  a  great  writer  who  was  himself  as  re- 
sponsible as  any  man  for  the  propagation  of  the  deadly 
principle  of  Imaginative  Analysis  :  "  Trop  souvent  a 
Paris,"  says  Balzac,  "  dans  le  desir  d'arriver  plus 
promptement  que  par  la  voie  naturelle  a  cette  celebrite 
qui  pour  eux  est  la  fortune,  les  artistes  empruntent 
les  ailes  de  la  circonstance,  ils  iroient  se  grandir  en  se 
faisant  les  hommes  d'une  chose,  en  devenant  les 
souteneurs  d'une  syst^me,  et  ils  esperent  changer  une 
coterie  en  public.  Tel  est  republicain,  tel  autre  est 
Saint-Simonien,  tel  est  aristocrate,  tel  catholique,  tel 
juste  milieu,  tel  moyen  ^ge,  ou  allemand,  par  parti 
pris.  Mais  si  I'opinion  ne  donne  pas  le  talent,  elle 
le  gate  to uj ours,  t(^moin  le  pauvre  garyon  vous  venez 
de  voir.  L'opinion  d'un  artiste  doit  etre  la  foi  dans 
les  oeuvres,  et  son  seul  moyen  de  succfes  le  travail, 
quand  la  nature  lui  a  donne  le  feu  sacr^."  ^  When 
authors  so  dissimilar  as  Homer  and  Balzac  agree  in 
ascribing  the  decay  of  art  to  exaggerated  self-con- 
sciousness, the  impassioned  followers  of  Novelty 
would  do  well  to  pause  and  consider  in  what  direction 
they  are  hurrying  with  so  much  enthusiasm. 

'  Les  comidiens  sans  le  savoir. 


ISO  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


The  second  cause  of  the  Decadence  of  Poetry  is 
social,  namely,  the  want  of  cultivation  and  refinement 
in  the  public  taste.  Under  the  rule  of  the  Middle 
Classes — so  different  in  this  respect  from  the  aris- 
tocracy of  the  eighteenth  century — the  principle  De 
gustihus  non  est  disputanduvn  has  received,  in  the 
sphere  of  Art,  as  much  encouragement  as  the  principle 
Laisser  Faire  in  the  sphere  of  Politics  and  Economics. 
Philosophic  authority  is  cited  in  favour  of  this 
sublime  indifference,  which  arises,  in  fact,  from  sheer 
insensibility.  " The  Art,"  says  Addison,  "is  to  con- 
form to  the  Taste,  not  the  Taste  to  the  Art."  A  true 
saying,  but  one  that  needs  to  be  understood.  As  the 
end  of  art  is  to  produce  pleasure,  poets  and  all  other 
artists  must  take  into  account  alike  the  constitution 
of  the  human  mind  and  the  circumstances  of  the 
society  which  it  is  their  business  to  please.  Shake- 
speare would  not  have  been  the  greatest  of  dramatists  if 
he  had  simply  attempted  to  embody  his  own  aesthetic 
and  moral  conceptions,  without  considering  what  was 
expected  of  him  in  the  structure  of  his  plays,  even  by 
"the  groundlings."  Eaphael  and  Titian  were  great 
painters  because  they  reflected,  not  only  on  what  was 
beautiful  in  itself,  but  on  the  relation  of  the  beautiful 
to  altar-pieces  and  other  architectural  conditions  in 
the  religious  life  of  their  time.  So  much  submission 
to  the  social  order  on  the  part  of  the  artist  is  neces- 
sary, if  the  Universal  in  art  is  to  be  manifested  to  the 
world  with  individual  colour,  life,  and  character. 

But  in  allowing  this  I  am  far  from  assenting  to 
the  proposition  that  the  idea  of  the  Universal,  the 


user.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  151 

enduring  law  of  life  in  Art,  is  to  be  found  in  un- 
educated public  taste.  Popular  taste  has,  no  doubt, 
a  foundation  in  Nature.  The  majority,  judging  by 
instinct,  often  agree  among  themselves,  and  make 
their  opinion  irresistibly  felt,  as  is  shown  by  the 
judgments  of  the  spectators  in  the  theatre,  or  by  the 
popularity  of  a  novel,  and  in  these  judgments  there  is 
generally  some  truth.  But  the  unrefined  instinct  of  the 
multitude  is,  as  a  rule,  in  favour  of  what  is  obvious 
and  superficial :  impatient  of  reflection,  it  is  attracted 
by  the  loud  colours  and  the  commonplace  sentiment 
which  readily  strike  the  senses  or  the  affections. 
Observe  the  popular  songs  in  the  Music  Halls,  the 
pictorial  advertisements  on  the  hoardings,  the  books 
on  the  railway  stall,  the  lists  in  the  circulating 
libraries ;  from  these  may  be  divined  the  level  to 
which  the  public  taste  is  capable  of  rising  by  its  own 
untrained  perception.  That  which  is  natural  in  such 
taste  is  also  vulgar ;  and  if  vulgar  Nature  is  to  be 
the  standard  of  Art,  nothing  but  a  versatile  mediocrity 
of  invention  is  any  longer  possible.  Let  Art  conform 
to  Taste  in  this  sense  of  the  word  ;  let  the  imagination 
of  the  people  be  identified  with  the  imagination  of 
the  majority  of  the  moment ;  let  Money  be  the 
standard  by  which  all  things  are  to  be  measured  ;  and 
it  follows  logically  that  every  kind  of  art  must  trans- 
form itself  into  some  species  of  journalism,  and  that 
what  is  traditionally  known  as  Fine  Art  must  fall  into 
hopeless  decay. 

I    decline,    however,    to    identify    the    transient 
impressions  of  what  is  called   Public  Opinion  with 


152  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


the  settled  Conscience  of  the  People,  or  to  believe 
that  this  Conscience  is  so  deadened  and  materialised 
as  to  be  unable  to  apprehend  the  law  upon  which 
the  life  of  Poetry  and  all  fine  art  depends.  Let  me 
remind  you  of  the  definition  with  which  we  started 
on  this  inquiry.  *'  Poetry  is  the  art  of  producing 
pleasure  for  the  imagination  by  imitating  human 
actions,  thoughts,  and  passions  in  metrical  language." 
"The  art  of  producing  pleasure  for  the  imagination." 
What  pleasure  ?  whose  imagination  ?  Not  pleasure 
for  the  mere  collection  of  individuals  living  in 
England,  the  majority  of  whom,  to  use  the  words 
of  Aristotle,  are  necessarily  "  without  any  idea  of 
the  noble  and  truly  pleasant,  of  which  they  have 
never  tasted."  Not  pleasure  intended  to  gratify  the 
refined  curiosity  of  the  sect  or  the  coterie,  or  even 
adapted  to  the  separate  perceptions  and  inclinations 
of  the  aristocracy,  the  Middle  Classes,  and  the 
Democratic  Classes ;  but  pleasure  which  can  be  felt 
by  what  is  best  in  the  English  People  as  a  whole, 
when  it  throws  its  imagination  back  to  its  own 
infancy,  and  travels  along  the  course  of  the  traditions 
of  its  art  and  literature ;  pleasure  such  as  has  been 
produced  by  one  generation  of  great  poets  after 
another  whose  work  still  moves  in  the  reader  wonder 
and  delight. 

Again,  what  is  meant  by  Imitation  in  Poetry? 
Not  the  prosaic  transcript  of  external  things.  Not 
even  that  imaginative  representation  of  things  which 
may  be  produced  by  an  analysis  of  the  poet's  own 
consciousness.       Self-consciousness    must    no    doubt 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  153 

enter  in  some  degree  into  all  modern  artistic  con- 
ceptions; we  cannot  escape  from  it;  it  is  the  inevitable 
attendant  of  the  advance  of  society  in  knowledge 
and  civilisation.  But  if  Poetry  is  to  survive — I 
will  go  further  and  say  if  the  civilisation  of  England 
is  to  survive — we  must  recognise,  as  the  true  sphere 
of  imitation,  a  region  of  consciousness  above  and 
beyond  our  own ;  the  source  of  life  which  Matthew 
Arnold  was  thinking  of  when  he  speaks  of  "right 
reason,"  "  our  better  self,"  "  the  firm  intelligible  law 
of  things " ;  and  which  Mr.  Kipling's  soldier  heroes 
dimly  but  undoubtingly  apprehend,  when  they  exalt 
in  their  peculiar  idiom  the  virtues  of  discipline, 
obedience,  and  order.  The  poet  must  imitate  the 
Universal.  It  is  only  when  he  starts  from  the  basis 
of  an  universal  Idea — whether  this  be  the  inspiration 
of  Faith  or  the  tradition  of  Authority — that  he 
acquires  the  power  to  create;  that  is,  to  reproduce 
in  an  ideal  form  the  image  of  external  Nature. 

See  how  this  truth  is  illustrated  in  the  work  of  the 
two  greatest  creators  in  English  Poetry,  Shakespeare 
and  Milton.  Shakespeare  is  supreme  among  poets, 
because  he  was  the  least  hampered  by  the  distractions 
of  self- consciousness,  or  at  any  rate  had  his  own  self- 
consciousness  most  under  control ;  accepting  alike 
every  species  of  established  order  in  the  world  about 
him,  he  was  able  to  sympathise  with  whatever  was 
Catholic  and  Chivalric,  National  and  Historic,  Schol- 
astic and  Humane,  in  English  Society,  to  conceive  a 
multitude  of  characters  at  once  natural  and  ideal,  and 
to  breathe  dramatic  life  and  reality  into  a  hundred 


154  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


imaginary  situations  that  liad  been  for  ages  floating 
vaguely  in  the  tales  of  trouveres  and  annalists. 
Milton,  rising  above  the  sphere  of  self-consciousness, 
conquered  for  himself  a  large  region  of  ideal  freedom 
by  blending  in  his  mind  universal,  though  opposing, 
conceptions,  derived  from  the  dogmas  of  the  Christian 
Keligion,  the  imagery  of  mediaeval  Romance,  and  all 
the  art,  culture,  and  civic  wisdom  of  Pagan  Antiquity. 
Inspiration  by  the  Universal,  then,  must  be 
regarded  as  the  essential  source  of  Life  in  Poetry. 
This  has  been  the  main  contention  of  the  series  of 
lectures  I  have  now  concluded.  I  have  shown  by 
reference  to  the  works  of  the  greatest  poets  how  the 
universal  idea  is  conceived  in  the  imagination  ;  how 
it  demands  for  itself  expression  by  means  of  metre 
as  distinct  from  prose ;  how  when  the  sense  of  the 
Universal  wanes  in  society  the  art  of  Poetry  also 
dwindles  and  declines.  But  there  remains  a  side  of 
the  question  which  I  have  only  touched  superficially. 
Though  the  suggestion  of  universal  ideas  to  the 
poet  proceeds  from  unconscious  inspiration,  the  right 
treatment  of  the  Universal  is  the  function  of  Taste. 
At  this  point,  in  fact,  self-co7isciousness  necessarily 
comes  into  operation.  Theoretically  we  are  all  ready 
to  acknowledge  that  the  end  of  every  kind  of  poetry 
is  "to  hold  the  mirror  up  to  Nature,"  that  is,  to 
express  the  undefined  idea  of  what  is  naturally 
beautiful,  sublime,  or  pathetic ;  the  difficulty  is  to 
present  this  common  idea  to  our  own  generation  ;  "  to 
show  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time,  his  form  and 
pressure." 


LECT.  IV  POETRY  AND  THE  PEOPLE  155 

To  put  the  problem  in  the  shape  of  a  question, 
How  is  the  poet  to  subject  the  liberties  of  genius 
to  the  laws  of  cultivated  taste?  For  though,  in 
the  late  stage  of  society  at  which  we  have 
arrived,  each  man  retains  in  his  own  imagination 
fragments  and  glimpses  of  the  great  ideal  view  of 
Nature  which  in  its  infancy  our  society  shared 
collectively,  this  has  been  so  individualised  by  the 
natural  growth  of  civilisation,  and  so  obscured  by 
the  intervention  of  transient  fashions  of  thought, 
that  anything  like  consent  in  matters  of  art  and 
taste  seems  to  be  almost  impossible.  I  imagine 
that  Tennyson,  perhaps  the  most  skilful  poetical 
artist  of  the  century,  completely  deceived  himself 
when  he  declared  that  he  sang  "but  as  the  linnet 
sings."  The  modern  poet  has  to  decide  in  the  first 
place  whether  the  ideas  that  present  themselves  to 
his  imagination  are  genuine  inspirations  or  only 
Idols  of  the  Fancy ;  then  to  discover  the  form  best 
suited  to  embody  his  conception ;  to  estimate  the 
value  of  different  ideas  relatively  to  the  composition 
as  a  whole ;  to  select  some,  to  reject  others,  to 
arrange  what  remain ;  to  find  the  right  word  for 
the  expression  of  the  thought,  and  the  right  position 
of  the  word  in  the  verse.  All  these  perplexing 
conditions  make  the  composition  of  poetry  as  different 
as  possible  from  the  song  of  a  bird ;  Art  as  well  as 
Nature  has  to  be  consulted ;  and  if  poetic  conception 
is  to  issue  in  a  permanent  form  of  poetic  expression, 
the  poet  must  be  a  man  not  only  of  the  highest 
invention  but  of  the  finest  judgment. 


156  LIFE  IN  POETRY 


Such  being  the  case,  it  appears  to  me  that  it 
will  be  both  natural  and  useful  to  supplement  this 
inquiiy  into  the  conditions  of  Life  in  Poetry  by 
an  investigation  of  the  nature  of  Law  in  Taste. 
I  propose  during  the  remainder  of  my  tenure  of 
this  Chair  to  consider  that  subject  in  a  fresh  series 
of  lectures,  in  which  I  shall  attempt  to  show  the 
universality  of  the  instinct  which  has  prompted  men 
in  civilised  communities  to  express  in  verse  their 
idea  of  Nature,  and  also  the  causes  which  have  so 
modified  man's  idea  of  the  Universal  in  Nature  as 
to  give  a  peculiar  character  and  individuality  to 
the  poetry  of  every  nation  ;  when  I  have  completed 
this  survey  I  shall  seek  to  draw  from  it  some  practical 
conclusions  as  to  the  possibility  of  directing  the 
course  of  liberal  education  in  England,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  Universities,  with  a  view  to  influencing 
the  national  taste. 


PART    III 

LAW  IN  TASTE 


INTRODUCTORY 

In  most  of  the  departments  of  Life  or  Knowledge, 
Englishmen  have  earned  the  character  of  yielding  a 
ready  obedience  to  the  claims  of  Law  and  Order. 
We  are  strict  in  requiring  submission  to  the  pre- 
scriptions of  Moral  Law.  We  know  that  our  civil 
liberties  depend  on  our  loyal  observance  of  the 
Common  Law  of  the  land.  We  perceive  the 
necessity  of  subordinating  the  freedom  of  individual 
fancy  to  the  severe  laws  of  Physical  Science.  But 
there  is  a  very  extensive  region  of  the  understanding 
within  which  each  of  us  is  inclined  to  claim  for 
himself  an  absolute  exemption  from  law ;  we  do  not 
admit  that  there  is  any  obligation  on  the  individual 
to  examine,  school,  and  regulate  his  perceptions  in 
matters  of  Art  and  Taste.  "  There  has  never  been 
in  England,"  says  Augustus  Schlegel,  "an  academical 
school  of  taste ;  in  art,  as  in  life,  every  man  there 
gives  his  voice  for  what  best  pleases  him,  or  what  is 
most  suitable  to  his  own  individual  nature."  And 
so  far  have  we  carried  this  liberty  that  criticism,  or 
the  would-be  exposition  of  aesthetic  law,  has  fallen 


i6o  LAW  IN  TASTE 


among  us  into  something  like  disrepute.  "  The 
critics,"  said  Lord  Beaconsfield,  making  an  epigram 
which  he  knew  would  be  popular,  '*  are  the  men  who 
have  failed." 

How  far  is  this  tendency  in  the  English  mind 
reasonable  ?  It  is  undoubtedly  grounded  on  two 
fundamental  instincts  in  the  constitution  of  our 
nature,  our  determination  to  abide  by  the  results 
of  experience,  and  our  love  of  what  is  practical. 
Englishmen  are  sceptical  in  all  matters  that  cannot 
be  brought  to  the  test  of  actual  experience,  and  it  is 
this  national  characteristic  which  has  given  rise  on 
one  side  to  the  inductive  philosophy  of  Bacon,  Locke, 
and  Newton,  and  on  the  other  to  the  speculative 
school  of  David  Hume,  which  maintains  that  no 
system  of  order  is  discoverable  transcending  the 
immediate  perceptions  of  sense.  Within  the  domain 
of  philosophy  we  are  right  to  follow  logic  to  its 
legitimate  conclusions.  But  reasoning  which  is  valid 
for  the  philosopher  may  for  the  average  mind  simply 
provide  an  excuse  for  avoiding  the  primary  duties 
of  thought.  We  are  obliged  to  recognise  not  only 
the  fact  that  from  the  days  of  Aristotle  men  in 
every  generation,  and  in  every  civilised  society, 
have  occupied  themselves  with  attempts  to  discover 
the  fundamental  laws  of  Fine  Art,  but  also  that,  by 
the  very  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  each  man 
is  a  critic.  When  we  read  a  work  of  fiction,  or  look 
at  a  picture  or  a  statue,  if  we  reflect  at  all,  we  go 
through  some  process  of  reasoning  and  comparison 
which  justifies  our  mind  in  remaining  in  a  state  of 


INTRODUCTORY  i6i 


pleasure  or  dissatisfaction.  Moreover,  we  find  that 
this  process  of  reasoning  is  not  an  operation  peculiar 
to  ourselves,  but  something  that  can  be  compared 
with  and  measured  by  the  experience  of  our  neigh- 
bours. Evidently,  then,  our  immediate  aesthetic 
perceptions  are  capable  of  analysis,  and  there  is 
at  least  a  possibility,  that  the  common  perceptions 
of  any  society  of  men  about  objects  of  art  may  be 
derived  from  some  absolute  system  of  Law  and 
Order  in  Nature  itself. 

Again,  it  is  argued  that,  even  if  the  laws  of  taste 
were  discoverable,  they  would  be  of  no  practical  use, 
either  to  the  artist  who  creates,  or  to  the  world 
which  judges  of  the  artist's  work.  This  is  an  argu- 
ment which  finds  a  kind  of  ally  in  the  disposition 
of  the  philosopher.  For  example,  a  distinguished 
member  of  this  University,  Mr.  Bernard  Bosanquet, 
the  author  of  a  very  valuable  History  of  Esthetic, 
which  may  be  studied  with  the  greatest  advantage  by 
all  who  wish  to  follow  me  in  this  course  of  lectures, 
says :  "  Esthetic  theory  is  a  branch  of  philosophy, 
and  exists  for  the  sake  of  knowleds^e,  and  not  as  a 
guide  to  practice."  Now  that  is  surely  not  quite 
true.  Aristotle,  the  first  of  aesthetic  theorists,  was 
no  doubt  interested  in  discovering  the  laws  of  fine 
art,  mainly  as  part  of  the  system  of  Nature,  but  no 
sooner  had  he  defined  the  fundamental  laws  of  poetry 
than  he  proceeded  to  apply  them,  as  we  see  from  the 
rules  he  lays  down  for  the  composition  of  "the 
perfect  tragedy."  In  the  same  way  Mr,  Kuskin  in 
our  own  time  began  his  Modern  Painters  with   an 

M 


i62  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 

investigation  of  general  principles,  and  after  satisfy- 
ing himself  as  to  the  nature  of  these,  he  brought 
many  painters  and  poets  to  his  bar  of  judgment, 
causing  thereby  a  great  revolution  in  the  sphere  of 
taste. 

The  truth  is,  that  art  forms  so  large  a  part 
of  the  enjoyment  of  life,  that  the  study  of  its 
principles  cannot  be  carried  on  altogether  in  the 
sublime  and  indifferent  region  of  philosophy.  The 
fears,  the  hopes,  the  ambitions  of  men  mingle  them- 
selves inseparably  with  the  serene  practice  of  art, 
often,  indeed,  stirring  up  something  of  that  eager 
and  acrid  emotion  which  accompanies  the  conflict  of 
politics  in  a  free  country ;  so  that  though  it  be  true, 
as  Schlegel  says,  that  "  in  England  every  man  gives 
his  voice  for  what  best  pleases  him,  or  what  is  most 
suitable  to  his  own  nature,"  yet  it  is  equally  true 
that  every  man  of  spirit  is  anxious  to  see  his  own 
artistic  opinion  prevail,  and,  just  as  in  politics,  will 
use  all  the  machinery  at  his  disposal  to  make  it 
prevail.  To  the  constant  clashing  of  myriads  of  in- 
dividual tastes,  advocated  without  method,  and  with 
all  the  heat  of  party  spirit,  is  to  be  attributed  the 
unhappy  reputation  which  has  gathered  round  the 
name  of  the  English  critic. 

My  object  in  the  course  of  lectures  which  I 
propose  to  deliver  is  to  consider  the  question  of 
Law  in  Taste  in  a  practical  temper,  to  examine  what 
its  nature  is,  where  it  is  to  be  looked  for,  how^  it  is 
to  be  applied,  and  to  what  extent  it  can  be  made 
the  subject  of  mental  training  and  discipline.     I  am 


INTRODUCTORY  165 


auxious  to  remove  the  question  alike  from  the  region 
of  metaphysics  and  the  atmosphere  of  party,  and  I 
therefore  ask  my  hearers  to  condescend  to  enter 
upon  the  inquiry  in  the  most  elementary  manner, 
banishing,  as  far  as  possible,  all  technical  and  philo- 
sophical terms,  and  making  use  only  of  such  arguments 
as  can  be  popularly  understood. 

Now  the  Law  of  Taste  must  be  determined  by 
the  end  of  Fine  Art,  and  let  me  say  at  once  that 
when  I  speak  of  Fine  Art,  I  am  satisfied  with  the 
distinction  which  Aristotle  draws  between  the  useful 
and  the  imitative  Arts ;  between  those  which  have  a 
practical  end  in  use  or  profit,  and  those  whose  end  is 
pleasure ;  between  those  which  seek  to  make  Nature 
their  servant,  and  those  which  are  satisfied  with 
imitating  her ;  the  latter  alone — namely  Poetry, 
Sculpture,  Painting,  Music,  and  to  a  certain  extent 
Architecture — being  entitled  to  the  name  of  the  Fine 
Arts.  The  end  of  Fine  Art  may  therefore  be  re- 
garded from  two  sides  :  one  being  the  object  of 
Imitation  which  the  artist  proposes  to  himself;  the 
other  the  effect  which  the  imitation  itself  produces  on 
the  mind.  First,  as  to  the  object  of  imitation.  I  use 
the  word  "  imitation  "  partly  because  it  has  been  con- 
secrated by  long  usage  in  all  discussions  about  Fine 
Art,  and  partly  because  it  is,  on  the  whole,  the 
most  general  and  philosophic  term  applicable  to  the 
subject,  since  it  is  obvious  that,  in  one  sense  or 
another,  all  the  fine  arts  involve  a  representation 
either  of  external  objects  or  of  the  facts  of  human 
nature.     This  is  the  case  even   with  Music.     Music, 


i64  LAW  IN  TASTE 


indeed,  appeared  to  the  Greeks  to  be  the  most 
imitative  of  all  the  arts,  because  it  was  the  most 
direct  outward  manifestation,  in  a  rhythmical  form,  of 
the  passions  and  emotions  of  men.  We  ourselves 
regard  it  in  a  different  light,  and  find  it  difficult  to 
associate  with  Music  the  idea  of  imitation  except 
when  it  is  accompanied  with  words.  Nevertheless, 
the  titles  assigned  by  great  modern  masters  to 
their  compositions  show  that,  to  a  certain  extent 
at  all  events,  human  ideas  and  experiences  are 
intended  to  be  expressed  by  a  combination  of 
harmonious  sounds;  witness  Mendelssohn's  Songs 
without  Words,  Beethoven's  Pastoral  Symphony, 
and  the  different  kinds  of  marches  and  requiems  of 
other  composers. 

The  first  region  in  which  we  may  look  for  the 
existence  of  Law  in  Art  is,  therefore,  the  merely 
correct  imitation  of  external  things,  as  they  are 
conveyed  to  the  mind  through  the  senses.  Each  of 
the  Fine  Arts  has  certain  elementary  laws  of  imita- 
tion which  the  artist  is  bound  to  obey  ;  for  example, 
the  painter's  work  must  conform  to  the  laws  of  per- 
spective, and  the  proper  distribution  of  light  and 
shade ;  the  musical  composer  must  understand  the 
due  distribution  of  keys  and  rhythms ;  the  poet 
must  be  acquainted  with  the  conditions  under  which 
words  can  be  harmoniously  arranged  in  metre ;  and 
the  man  who  would  qualify  himself  to  be  a  critic 
in  any  one  of  these  arts  must  have  the  same 
amount  of  theoretical  knowledore  as  the  artist. 

But    this    principle   of   the    correct   imitation  of 


INTRODUCTORY  165 


Nature  carries  us  but  a  very  little  way  in  our 
investigations  of  the  Law  of  Taste ;  because  it  is 
evident  that  Nature  and  Art  work  with  different 
materials,  and  express  themselves  in  different  forms. 
To  imitate  Nature  correctly  in  any  of  the  Arts  is 
not  to  copy  the  exact  appearances  of  things.  The 
sculptor  or  painter  does  not  attempt  to  imitate 
Nature  by  creating  men  in  flesh  and  blood,  but  by 
representing  them  in  marble  and  colour ;  the  poet, 
in  so  far  as  he  is  a  poet,  will  not  reproduce  on  the 
stage  the  tragedies  of  life  as  they  are  met  with  in  the 
police  courts  and  reported  in  the  newspapers ;  he 
shows  to  the  spectators  the  actions  and  characters  of 
men  in  situations  of  his  own  contriving.  Every 
artist,  in  fact,  puts  into  his  imitation  of  external 
things  something  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
particular  aspect  of  Nature.  What  that  something 
is  has  been  a  matter  of  dispute  from  the  earliest 
days  of  criticism.  Some  of  the  ancients  called  it  to 
KoXov,  others  rh  ^iXriov ;  some  of  the  moderns  define 
it  as  the  Beautiful,  others  as  the  Characteristic  :  this 
much  at  least  is  agreed  upon,  that  the  end  of  Fine 
Art  is  to  produce  an  appearance  of  organic  life  in 
the  sphere  of  the  Ideal  resembling  something  that 
exists  in  the  sphere  of  the  Real. 

From  this  it  follows  very  clearly  that  the  end  of 
Fine  Art  is  not  accomplished  when  the  artist  has 
put  into  form  the  ideal  object  which  he  has  proposed 
to  himself.  For  the  object  of  imitation  is,  by  the 
hypothesis,  something  external  to  the  mind,  and  if 
the  work  of  the  artist  be  alone  looked  to,  we  cannot 


1 66  LAW  IN  TASTE 


be  sure  that  it  is  not  an  image  of  a  monster,  or 
chimera,  or  some  other  form  of  unreal  existence. 
The  artist  himself  may  be  like  Horace's  mad  gentle- 
man at  Argos,  who  sat  in  the  empty  theatre  pleasing 
himself  with  the  idea  that  he  was  witnessing  the 
progress  of  a  drama  on  the  stage.  We  want  some 
test  and  verification  of  the  ideal  life  presented  to  us 
by  Art ;  and  it  is  on  this  account  that  we  have  to 
look  for  the  end  of  Fine  Art  in  the  effect  which  the 
imitation  produces  on  the  mind ;  in  other  words,  we 
may  decide  that,  quite  apart  from  all  questions  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  Beautiful  or  the  Characteristic,  the 
end  of  Fine  Art  is  to  produce  aesthetic  pleasure. 
When  the  pleasure  felt  is  universal,  when  it  is  felt, 
that  is  to  say,  alike  by  the  skilled  critic  and  by  the 
world  which  judges  from  instinct,  then,  and  not  till 
then,  can  it  be  said  that  life  has  been  organised  and 
created  in  the  sphere  of  the  Ideal,  and  the  objective 
aim  of  Art  certainly  realised. 

It  is  true  that  philosophers  deny  the  necessity  of 
considering  pleasure  as  an  essential  portion  of  the 
law  of  Fine  Art.  Mr.  Bosanquet  who  regards  the 
investigation  of  the  law  of  Beauty  as  the  proper 
subject  of  aesthetic  science,  and  who  defines  Beauty 
as  "  the  characteristic,  in  as  far  as  expressed  for  sense 
perception  or  imagination,"  says  :  "If,  indeed,  we 
were  attempting  a  psychological  determination  of 
the  feeling  that  attends  or  constitutes  the  peculiar 
enjoyment  known  as  the  enjoyment  of  beauty,  we 
should  probably  have  to  deal  with  a  term  not 
mentioned   in   the    definition   above  proposed  —  the 


INTRODUCTORY  167 


term  pleasure.  But  in  attempting  to  analyse  what 
it  is  that  distinguishes  perceptions  or  imaginations 
productive  of  this  enjoyment  from  others  which  are 
not  so  productive,  it  appears  to  me  that  we  should 
commit  a  serious  error  if  we  were  to  limit  '  expres- 
siveness '  or  '  characterisation '  either  by  beauty, 
which  is  the  term  to  be  defined,  or  by  pleasantness 
which  is  a  quality  not  naturally  coextensive  with  the 
term  to  be  defined." 

It  may,  indeed,  be  possible  for  the  philosopher, 
whose  mind  dwells  familiarly  among  abstract  terms, 
so  to  isolate  his  perceptions  that  the  ideas  conveyed 
by  the  words,  the  Beautiful,  the  Sublime,  the  Ugly, 
may  come  to  have  a  kind  of  objective  existence ; 
that  he  may  feel  himself  able  to  note  the  laws  of 
their  nature,  and  to  deduce  from  these  the  principles 
and  limits  of  Fine  Art.  But  even  the  philosopher 
must,  in  the  first  instance,  have  based  his  ideas  on 
his  observation  of  concrete  things,  which  he  includes 
under  the  words  "beautiful,"  "sublime,"  and  "ugly," 
and  it  is  certain  that  he  could  not  have  detached 
these  primary  perceptions  from  the  feelings  of 
pleasure  or  pain  with  which  they  were  accompanied. 
In  the  ultimate  search,  therefore,  it  seems  certain  that 
the  laws  of  taste  may  be  more  confidently  looked  for 
in  the  affections  of  the  mind,  which  it  is  possible  to 
analyse  with  some  precision,  than  in  the  nature  of  an 
external  Order,  which  may  indeed  have  an  absolute 
existence,  but  which  can  only  be  known  to  us  by  its 
operation  on,  and  its  relation  to,  the  organs  of 
perception. 


i68  LAW  IN  TASTE 


If  this  be  so,  however,  another  question  of  great 
difficulty  and  complexity  at  once  arises.  What  is 
the  nature  of  this  imaginative  pleasure  which  is  so 
inseparably  associated  w^ith  the  productions  of  Fine 
Art  ?  Is  it  to  be  regarded  as  an  end  in  itself,  per- 
fectly free  and  independent  of  all  moral  considerations? 
Or  does  it,  like  the  pleasures  of  sense,  fall  within  the 
scope  and  jurisdiction  of  the  moral  law  ?  Must  it  be 
held  the  peculiar  property  of  the  individual,  which 
may  be  enjoyed  by  him  without  any  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility to  his  neighbours  ?  Or  have  his  neigh- 
bours, who  share  the  common  perception,  a  right  to 
pronounce  judgment  on  these  enjoyments  of  the 
individual,  in  so  far  as  they  constitute  an  element  in 
the  life  and  well-being  of  society  ? 

Such  are  the  questions  which  arise  immediately 
we  beofin  to  reflect  on  the  nature  of  Law  in  Taste  ; 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  multitudinous  ocean  of 
sentiments  and  opinions  on  which  we  are  tossed,  it 
is  surely  well  for  each  man  to  look  for  the  steadfast 
guidance  of  the  stars  ;  to  form  in  his  mind  some 
settled  principles  by  which  he  may  test  the  value  of 
the  various  w^orks  of  art  which  are  produced  for  his 
pleasure.  I  propose,  therefore,  in  my  present  lecture 
to  ask,  in  the  first  place,  whether  ^Esthetic  Philo- 
sophy, as  such,  and  apart  from  artistic  practice,  can 
reveal  to  us  any  immutable  truths  about  the  two 
ends  of  Fine  Art,  Ideal  Imitation  and  Imaginative 
Pleasure ;  and  if  not,  whether  there  is  any  other 
method  that  we  can  pursue  to  discover  the  Law  of 
Taste,     For   this   purpose  it  will  be  convenient  to 


INTRODUCTORY  169 


give  a  very  brief  historical  sketch,  determined  by 
well-known  landmarks,  of  what  Philosophy  has  said 
upon  the  two  points  I  have  mentioned. 

Koughly  speaking,  the  history  of  aesthetic 
criticism  has  run  through  five  periods  :  the  Greek 
civic  period ;  the  Alexandrian  and  Roman  period ; 
the  Mediaeval  period  ;  the  period  of  the  Renaissance  ; 
and  the  Modern  period  following  the  French  Re- 
volution. To  take  first  what  has  been  said  in  each 
period  about  Ideal  Imitation.  The  first  to  approach 
the  subject  was  Plato,  who  appropriated  the  word 
Imitation  as  it  was  popularly  used  by  his  con- 
temporaries, and  decided  that,  as  the  artist  merely 
copied  that  surface  of  Nature  which  was  three 
degrees  removed  from  the  truth  of  things,  he  must, 
as  a  teacher  of  falsehood,  be  banished  from  the  Ideal 
Republic.  Aristotle,  continuing  the  use  of  Plato's 
terms,  treated  the  question  both  more  practically  and 
more  profoundly.  He  regarded  Art  as  a  rival  creator 
with  Nature,  holding  that  the  function  of  Art  was 
to  observe  Nature's  intentions  in  creation,  and  to 
express,  in  a  matter  and  form  distinct  from  that  of 
Nature,  a  higher  conception  of  the  ends  she  had  in 
view.  Reasoning  from  these  philosophical  principles 
he  laid  down  in  his  Poetics,  as  a  practical  critic, 
certain  definite  rules  with  regard  to  poetical  com- 
position, notably  as  to  the  construction  of  the  perfect 
tragedy  and  the  character  of  the  ideal  hero. 

So  far  Philosophy  had  treated  Art  from  a  social 
and  political  point  of  view.  J^lato  and  Aristotle  had 
been    educated  in   the  midst  of  ideas  derived   from 


I70  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  traditions  of  Greek  political  freedom,  and  all 
their  criticism  of  Fine  Art  was  inspired  by  their 
conceptions  of  the  duties  and  capacities  of  the 
individual  as  a  member  of  the  State.  But  in 
the  Alexandrian -Roman  period  the  point  of  view 
of  the  aesthetic  philosopher  began  to  alter :  the 
ideas  of  men  grew  cosmopolitan ;  their  aesthetic 
reasoning  became  more  theoretical  and  abstract. 
Within  this  period  we  find,  for  example,  the  philo- 
sopher Plotinus  grounding  himself  on  Plato  in  his 
speculations  about  the  Beautiful ;  but,  so  far  from 
condemning  the  artist's  imitation  of  Nature,  he 
approves  of  it  as  helping  men  to  conceive  an  image 
of  Divine  Good.  Thus  he  says  of  sculpture : 
"  Phidias  did  not  create  his  Zeus  after  any  perceived 
pattern,  but  made  him  such  as  he  would  be  if  Zeus 
deigned  to  appear  to  mortal  eyes."  In  this  period 
too  appears  the  aesthetic  treatise  assigned  to  Longinus, 
Hepl  vy^ov<i,  or  The  Sublime,  from  which  we  see  that 
the  imagination  of  the  artist  is  now  allowed  to  travel 
beyond  the  imitation  of  what  is  regularly  and 
symmetrically  beautiful,  and  in  which  we  get  the 
first  glimpse  of  the  later  controversy  about  the  place 
of  the  "  Ugly  "  in  art.  Moreover,  there  is  a  growing 
perception  of  the  interrelation  of  the  different  Fine 
Arts  as  the  vehicles  of  Imitation.  Cicero,  for  example, 
says :  "In  fact,  all  the  arts  which  relate  to  humanity 
have  a  certain  common  bond,  and  are  united  by 
a  kind  of  family  relationship ; "  while  Plutarch, 
making  the  idea  more  specific,  quotes  the  saying  of 
Simonides   that  "  Poetry  is  speaking  painting,  and 


INTRODUCTORY  171 


painting  dumb  poetry."  Finally,  we  have  critical 
treatises  like  Horace's  Ars  Poetica,  in  which,  as  in 
the  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  there  is  a  certain  amount 
of  reasoning  from  general  principles,  and  a  certain 
number  of  practical  rules  of  composition. 

From  the  Alexandrian -Roman  we  pass  to  the 
Mediaeval  Period,  in  which  we  witness  the  full  effects 
on  Art  of  the  philosophical  reasoning  of  Plato  and 
Plotinus.  The  result  of  the  Platonic  and  Neo-Platonic 
tradition  joined  to  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church 
is,  as  regards  Art,  and  especially  the  Art  of  Poetry — 
Allegory.  Things  that  are  seen  are  used  by  the  poet 
as  symbols  and  shadows  of  truths  invisible.  Dante, 
for  example,  says  of  Allegory :  "  Thus  it  is  fitting 
to  speak  to  your  wit,  seeing  that  it  is  only  from  a 
sensible  object  that  it  can  apprehend  what  it  after- 
wards makes  worthy  of  the  understanding.  Where- 
fore the  Scripture  condescends  to  your  intelligence  and 
-attributes  feet  and  hands  to  God,  while  it  understands 
something  else ;  and  Holy  Church  represents  to  you 
in  human  likeness  Gabriel  and  Michael,  and  the  other 
who  restored  Tobias  to  health." 

The  period  known  as  the  Renaissance  brought  the 
artist  back  from  symbolism  to  the  direct  imitation  of 
Nature,  and  advanced  the  authority  of  Aristotle,  as 
an  aesthetic  philosopher,  above  that  of  Plato.  This 
epoch  is  marked  by  several  widespread  controversies 
concerning  the  nature  of  Imitation  in  Fine  Art,  all 
more  or  less  derived  from  legacies  of  thought  and 
criticism  bequeathed  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  Corneille,  in  three  famous 


172  LAW  IN  TASTE 


essays  based  on  a  misinterpretation  of  the  Poetics  of 
Aristotle,  defined  the  duties  of  the  dramatist  in  com- 
position. The  rules  that  he  laid  down  were  accepted 
with  certain  modifications  as  the  law  of  the  French 
stage,  which  was  finally  declared  in  the  celebrated 
essay  prefixed  by  Voltaire  to  his  Semiramis,  where 
he  speaks  of  Shakespeare  as  a  "  drunken  savage," 
Partly  provoked  by  Voltaire's  arrogance,  and  partly 
following  national  instinct,  Lessing,  in  his  Harti- 
hurgische  Dramaturgic,  attacked  the  first  principles 
of  the  French  drama,  opposing  to  them  a  sounder 
interpretation  of  Aristotle's  Poetics,  and  a  more  in- 
telligent appreciation  of  the  art  of  Shakespeare. 
Meantime,  a  parallel  discussion,  originated  by  the 
Polymetis  of  Spence,  one  of  the  early  holders  of 
this  Chair  of  Poetry,  had  arisen  concerning  the 
relationship  between  Poetry  and  Painting.  It  took 
its  rise  from  the  saying  of  Simonides  to  which  I  have 
before  alluded,  and  gradually  developed  into  the 
theories  of  Mengs  and  Winckelmann,  based  on  the 
study  of  Greek  sculpture.  This  debate  culminated 
in  Lessing's  essay,  Laocoo7i,  in  which  that  great  critic 
defined,  more  precisely  than  any  previous  writer, 
the  diff'erent  functions  of  Imitation  discharged  by 
Poetry  and  Painting.  Almost  at  the  same  time 
philosophical  inquiries  into  these  or  similar  ques- 
tions were  made  by  Hogarth  in  his  Analysis  of 
Beauty,  by  Burke  in  his  essay  on  The  Sublime  and 
Beautiful,  and  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  in  his  Dis- 
courses, treating  of  the  Grand  and  Characteristic  styles 
in  Painting,  and  of  the  first  principles  of  that  art. 


INTRODUCTORY  173 


Last  of  all  we  come  to  our  own  period,  which 
may  be  truthfully  called  the  Revolutionary  Period, 
since  it  begins  with  the  epoch  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. The  primum  mobile  of  taste  in  this  era  is  the 
philosophy  of  Kant,  who  started  the  great  funda- 
mental question,  How  to  reconcile  the  world  of  sense 
and  phenomena  with  the  world  of  ideal  Order  existing 
in  the  mind.  It  would  be  impossible  for  me,  in  the 
brief  time  at  my  disposal,  to  condense  into  an  intel- 
ligible shape  the  complex  and  difficult  reasoning  of 
Kant  on  the  subject  of  Beauty  and  Fine  Art.  Suffice  it 
to  say,  he  himself  concludes  that  the  result  of  all  theor- 
ising on  such  matters  must  remain  purely  subjective. 

But  if  that  be  so,  how  can  the  artist  be  any 
longer  sure  that  he  has  a  firm  groundwork  in  his 
imitation  of  external  things,  or  that  he  will  be 
able  to  convey  to  the  imagination  of  others  the 
organic  conception  which  exists  in  his  own  ?  This 
was  a  question  to  which  Schiller  and  Goethe,  whose 
ambition  it  was  to  found  a  literature  in  Germany  on 
philosophical  principles,  felt  themselves  bound  to 
provide  a  theoretical  answer.  Each  did  so  in  his 
own  way.  Schiller,  accepting  the  doctrine  of  Kant 
and  Fichte,  that  the  individual  mind  is  the  centre  of 
the  universe,  nevertheless  maintained  that,  for  the 
artist,  Beauty  may  have  an  external  existence.  The 
individual  artist,  he  reasoned,  has  the  capacity  of 
clearly  noting  and  reflecting  on  the  semblances  of 
things  in  his  own  mind  ;  he  has  also  within  him  the 
power  of  imitation,  or,  as  Schiller  called  it,  "  the  play- 
impulse,"  in  other  words,  the  desire  of  reconstructing 


174  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  likenesses  of  external  things  in  concrete  images 
according  to  his  own  ideas  of  Order ;  out  of  these 
primary  innate  powers  springs  the  organism  of  Fine 
Art.  Goethe,  on  the  other  hand,  who  disliked 
metaphysics,  based  his  aesthetic  reasoning  on  his 
own  perception  of  the  falsehood  of  the  classical 
conventionalism  which  had  invaded  all  the  arts  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  maintained  that  the 
cause  of  art  was  the  desire  of  the  soul  to  imitate  the 
idea  of  the  Characteristic  which  it  notes  in  the  objects 
of  external  Nature.  He  seems  to  have  obtained 
his  generalised  idea  of  the  Characteristic  partly  from 
the  distinct  and  contrasted  types  of  ideal  life  embodied 
in  Greek  and  German  architecture,  and  partly  from 
the  observations  of  Winckelmann  and  Lessing  on  the 
inner  significance  of  Greek  sculpture  and  painting. 

Not  long  after  Goethe  had  originated  the  idea 
of  the  Characteristic,  Augustus  Schlegel  gave  it 
outline  and  emphasis  in  his  Lectures  on  Dramatic 
Poetry^  by  drawing  a  sharp  line  of  distinction  between 
the  Classic  and  Romantic  spirit,  and  between  the 
different  methods  of  imitation  pursued  by  the  poets 
in  ancient  and  modern  times.  Next,  starting  from 
the  basis  of  the  ideas  and  terms  rendered  familiar  by 
the  writings  of  Goethe  and  Schlegel,  Schelling  pro- 
vided a  philosophical  framework  for  the  suggestion 
furnished  by  Schiller.  He  worked  up,  as  it  were, 
through  the  purely  subjective  crust  of  Kant's  philo- 
sophic principles  to  a  kind  of  objective  point  in  which 
he  supposed  the  unconscious  spirit  of  life  in  the 
world    to   meet    with    the    conscious    spirit    of    the 


INTRODUCTORY  175 


individual  mind,  the  result  being  the  perception  of 
Beauty  and  artistic  Creation.  This  he  called  the 
Absolute.  Hegel  carried  the  idea  a  step  further. 
He  combined  Schelling's  conception  of  the  unconscious 
spirit  of  life  in  the  world  with  Schlegel's  critical 
distinctions  between  Ancient  and  Modern,  Classical 
and  Romantic  Art,  in  such  a  way  that  the  uncon- 
scious life  of  the  world  was  represented  by  him  as 
progressing  from  point  to  point,  like  stages  in  a 
journey,  each  of  which  was  reflected  in  the  conscious 
mind  of  man  through  successive  phases  of  Art.  Every 
stage  of  civilisation  in  the  world  has  found,  in  fact, 
according  to  Hegel,  a  central  representation  in  one 
of  the  Arts,  and  each  of  the  arts  again  has  passed 
through  three  phases  of  imitation,  called  respectively 
the  Symbolic,  the  Classic,  and  the  Romantic.  With 
Hegel  whatever  has  been  fruitful  in  the  German 
analysis  of  the  nature  of  Ideal  Imitation  comes  to  an 
end.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  interest  aroused 
by  these  discussions  has  by  no  means  been  confined 
to  the  sphere  of  philosophy,  but  has  for  good  or  ill 
reacted  on  the  course  of  art  itself.  The  speculative 
theories  of  Germany  led  to  the  war  between  the 
Classicists  and  Romanticists  in  France  after  the  re- 
storation of  the  Bourbons,  and  prepared  the  way  for 
the  Preraphaelite  movement  in  England  after  the 
first  Reform  Bill. 

Now  if  we  turn  back  to  the  other  side  of  the 
question,  and  ask  what  the  philosophy  of  the  world 
has  said  about  law  in  taste  with  regard  to  the  effect 
which  Fine  Art  produces  in  the  mind,  we  see,  in  the 


176  LAW  IN  TASTE 


first  place,  that  the  common  wisdom  of  the  Greeks 
held  the  purpose  of  Fine  Art  to  be  didactic  and 
educational ;  the  function  of  Poetry  at  least  being  to 
provide  instruction  sweetened  by  pleasure.  Strabo, 
for  example,  condemning  the  opinion  of  Eratosthenes 
that  "the  aim  of  the  poet  is  always  to  charm  the 
mind,  not  to  instruct,"  says,  "  that  poetry  is  a  kind 
of  elementary  philosophy  which  introduces  us  early 
to  life,  and  gives  us  pleasurable  instruction  in  refer- 
ence to  character,  emotion,  action."  To  Plato  this 
instinctive  conception  of  his  countrymen  appeared 
false  and  vulgar.  On  the  one  side,  his  own  course 
of  speculation  led  him  to  think  that  the  artist 
occupied  himself  with  the  imitation  only  of  the 
deceptive  and  fleeting  shows  of  things  ;  on  the  other 
he  had  a  contempt  for  pleasure  as  an  end  in  life, 
rating  what  he  held  to  be  the  highest  kind  of  pleasures 
only  fifth  in  his  scale  of  goods.  Speaking  of  the 
pleasure  produced  by  tragic  poetry,  as  if  Poetry  were 
the  sister  of  an  Art  like  Cookery,  he  asks  ironically : 
"  To  what  does  their  solemn  sister,  the  wondrous  Muse 
of  Tragedy,  devote  herself  ?  Is  all  her  aim  and  desire 
only  to  give  pleasure  to  the  spectators,  or  does  she 
fight  against  and  refuse  to  speak  of  their  pleasant 
vices,  and  willingly  proclaim  in  word  and  song  truths 
welcome  and  unwelcome  ?  Which  is  her  character  ?  " 
To  this  the  interlocutor  with  Socrates  has  to  reply  : 
"  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Tragedy  has  her  face 
turned  towards  pleasure  and  gratification ; "  where- 
upon Socrates  proceeds  with  a  further  question:  "And 
is  not  that  the  sort  of  thing  which  we  were  just  now 


INTRODUCTORY  177 


describing  as  flattery?"  Plato  therefore,  who  banished 
poets  from  his  Republic  because  they  were  the  imitators 
of  Falsehood,  would  also  have  banished  them  on  the 
ground  that  they  were,  as  he  supposed,  purveyors  of 
immoral  Pleasure.  His  attitude  towards  Fine  Art 
resembles  that  of  the  English  Puritans. 

The  intellectual  position  of  Aristotle  is  entirely 
different.  He  says  distinctly  that  the  end  of  Poetry, 
as  of  all  fine  art,  is  to  produce  a  pleasurable  effect  in 
the  mind.  When  Plato  objects  against  Homer  that  he 
produces  imaginative  pleasure  by  stories  of  the  gods 
which  are  untrue  and  immoral,  Aristotle  is  content  to 
reply  that  these  stories,  being  current  among  the  people, 
lie  at  the  root  of  that  art  of  Poetry  which  is  the  source 
of  ideal  pleasure.  By  arguing  in  this  way  against  the 
moral  philosopher,  Aristotle  separates  himself  to  a 
certain  extent  from  the  popular  Greek  tradition,  which 
assigned  to  Poetry  a  moral  and  didactic  function ; 
he  no  longer  regards  the  pleasure  arising  out  of 
poetry  as  something  directly  associated  with  instruc- 
tion, but  as  aesthetic  enjoyment,  a  thing  which  is 
to  be  examined  according  to  the  laws  of  its  own 
nature.  Nevertheless,  he  is  far  from  excludino-  the 
operation  of  moral  law  from  the  domain  of  aesthetic 
pleasure.  Moral  considerations  enter  into  his  defini- 
tion of  Tragedy.  "  Tragedy,"  he  says,  "  is  an  imitation 
of  an  action  and  of  life,  of  happiness  and  misery  ;  and 
happiness  and  misery  consist  in  action,  the  end  of 
human  life  being  a  mode  of  action,  not  a  quality." 
There  is  moral  feeling — even  though  the  metaphor 
on  which   they  are  based  may  be  material — in  the 

N 


178  LAW  IN  TASTE 

celebrated  words  which  describe  tragedy  as  "  effecting 
through  pity  and  fear  the  purgation  of  those  emotions." 
And  there  is  a  distinct  application  of  moral  law  in 
the  veto  placed  by  Aristotle  on  such  a  representation 
in  tragedy  of  gratuitous  wickedness,  as  is  given 
by  Euripides  in  the  character  of  Menelaus  in  the 
Orestes. 

To  some  modern  writers  Aristotle  has  appeared 
inconsistent  in  limiting  the  liberties  of  aesthetic 
enjoyment  by  the  intervention  of  moral  law.  Mr. 
Bosanquet  observes  :  "  The  emphasis  which  he  rightly 
laid  on  utterance  and  intelligence  did  not  lead  him 
to  the  idea  that  the  delight  of  these  factors  of  art 
was  no  mere  psychical  accident,  but  was  the  mani- 
festation of  joy  in  self-expression,  the  ultimate  root 
and  ground  of  aesthetic  pleasure  ;  and,  therefore, 
when  we  are  asked  whether  Aristotle  recoornised 
aesthetic  as  apart  from  real  interest  (either  moral 
or  hedonistic),  we  are  thrown  into  perplexity."  For 
my  own  part,  I  think  that  this  difficulty  may  readily 
be  cleared  up.  Aristotle  did  not,  like  modern  philo- 
sophers, consider  man  in  a  mere  individual  human 
capacity ;  he  regarded  him  as  a  "  political  being," 
and  only  cared  to  contemplate  him  in  a  state  of 
society.  Hence  all  his  speculations  about  him  are 
tacitly  limited  by  some  practical  assumption  ;  he 
measures  virtue  in  the  abstract  by  its  manifestation 
in  the  wise  and  prudent  man  (o  <l>p6vcfio<;)  ;  and  the 
same  kind  of  test  is  applied  to  discriminate  the 
varieties  of  aesthetic  enjoyment.  The  end  of  Fine 
Art  is  to  produce  pleasure  in  the  imagination,  but 


INTRODUCTORY  179 


the  Standard  of  such  pleasure  is  the  impression  made 
on  the  mind  of  the  accomplished  and  cultivated 
member  of  society  (6  -xapiet,^),  which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  rule  of  what  ought  to  be,  in  this  depart- 
ment of  human  nature.  Such  a  man  will  not 
require  the  elementary  "  pleasurable  instruction " 
spoken  of  by  Strabo ;  he  will  indulge  his  imagina- 
tion in  every  kind  of  enjoyment  that  gives  play 
to  his  healthy  instincts ;  but  he  will  repress  with 
sternness  those  spiritual  solicitings  which  tend  to 
the  corruption  of  his  own  nature  and  the  enervation 
of  society. 

To  me,  indeed,  it  seems  that  Aristotle,  in  thus 
associating  Art  with  Morality,  is  far  more  profound  and 
consistent  than  the  modern  German  philosophers  who 
attempt  to  exclude  all  moral  considerations  from  what 
they  call  the  Science  of  ^Esthetics,  and  who  analyse 
man  merely  as  an  isolated  sentient  being.  Kant,  indeed, 
the  father  of  all  modern  German  philosophy,  occupies 
a  logical  position  in  the  matter.  If  I  understand 
him  rightly  in  his  Critique  of  tJte  Power  of  Judgment, 
he  holds  that  those  only  are  perfectly  free  perceptions 
of  Beauty  which  are  accompanied  in  the  mind  with 
a  sensation  of  pleasure,  without  any  perception  of 
dependeiK.e  or  relation ;  and  that  these  perceptions 
cannot  be  classed  under  any  rational  conception  or 
associated  with  a  moral  end.  But  if  this  be  so,  the 
analysis  of  aesthetic  pleasure  ought  to  be  limited  to 
the  purely  physical  feelings  that  are  associated  with 
beautiful  sights  and  sounds,  such  as  the  example 
which  Kant  gives  of  our  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of 


i8o  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 

a  flower ;  and  hence  the  consistent  followers  of  Kant 
have  endeavoured  to  develop  his  a3Sthetic  philosophy 
by  an  investigation  of  the  permanent  physical  con- 
ditions which  accompany  sensations  of  mental  pleasure, 
inquiring,  for  example,  what  geometrical  figures  are 
most  pleasant  to  the  eye ;  how  far  the  pleasures  of 
the  ear  arise  from  the  import  of  single  notes  in  music 
or  from  measured  intervals  of  sound ;  and  what  are 
the  elementary  meanings  of  the  association  of  colours. 
From  questions  of  this  kind  all  moral  considerations 
are,  of  course,  properly  excluded.  But  obviously  the 
pleasure  produced  in  the  imagination  by  works  of  Fine 
Art,  and  especially  Poetry,  cannot  be  examined  in  this 
way,  and  Kant,  who  maintained  that  all  Beauty  capable 
of  presenting  an  ideal  was — as  he  expressed  it — not 
free  but  "  dependent,"  would  not  have  considered 
Poetry  as  falling  within  the  purely  aesthetic  sphere. 

Hegel  and  his  followers,  on  the  contrary,  are 
like  Kant,  anxious  to  exclude  moral  judgment 
from  the  aesthetic  sphere,  but  are  at  the  same  time 
resolved  to  include  poetry  within  the  domain  of 
aesthetic  philosophy,  and  Mr.  Bosanquet  criticises 
Kant's  position  as  follows  :  "If  beauty  is  regarded 
as  subservient  to  morality,  or  is  judged  by  the 
standard  of  specifically  moral  ideas,  it  is  beyond  a 
doubt  unfree  or  dependent.  But  if  the  content  of 
life  and  reason  is  taken  into  beauty,  and  perceived 
not  as  the  expression  of  morality,  but  as  the  utter- 
ance in  another  form  of  that  reasonableness  which  is 
also  to  be  found  in  morality,  then  we  first  destroy 
the  restriction  of  ideal  beauty  to  man — for  there  is 


INTRODUCTORY  i8l 


reasonableness  in  all  nature — and  we  secondly  break 
down  the  extraordinary  paradox  that  the  highest 
beauty  is  not  free.  That  beauty  which  is  the  largest 
and  deepest  revelation  of  spiritual  power  is  not  the 
most  dependent  but  the  freest  beauty,  because  it 
implies  no  purpose  whatever  excepting  that  which 
constitutes  its  own  inmost  nature,  the  expression  of 
reason  in  sensuous  form."  If  it  were  not  presumptuous 
for  a  professor  of  Poetry  to  criticise  a  philosopher  on 
his  own  ground,  I  should  venture  to  remark  that  the 
argument  that  Beauty  and  Morality  are  only  forms  of 
reasonable  life,  and  that  the  former  may  therefore 
be  included  in  the  sphere  of  philosophic  analysis,  is  a 
somewhat  extraordinary  petitio  principii. 

When  we  survey  the  long  history  of  aesthetic 
inquiry  can  we  say  that  Philosophy,  apart  from 
artistic  practice,  has  thrown  any  light  upon  the  laws 
of  taste  ?  To  this  question  we  must  answer,  in  the 
first  place,  that  a  very  large  portion  of  aesthetic 
philosophy,  as  being  concerned  solely  with  abstract 
knowledge,  has  no  bearing  on  our  purposes.  What 
we  are  in  search  of  is  some  settled  principle  or 
principles  which  shall  help  us,  in  appreciating  the 
merits  of  a  work  of  art,  to  determine  whether  the 
artist  has  adopted  a  right  method  of  ideal  imitation, 
and  whether  our  judgment  of  his  work,  as  measured 
by  the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain  in  our  mind,  rests 
upon  a  basis  of  reason.  We  are  in  no  way  helped  to 
a  decision  on  such  points  when  Hegel  tells  us  that 
"  beauty  is  the  presentation  of  truth  to  sense  and 
fancy,"  or  when  Hartmann,  who  is  supposed  by  some 


LAW  IN  TASTE 


to  have  said  the  last  word  on  the  subject,  affirms  that 
"beauty  is  the  life  of  love  apprehending  its  own 
ground  and  purpose."  One  German  philosopher  after 
another  may  suggest  a  scientific  classification  of  the 
Fine  Arts,  but  not  one  of  these  will  help  us  to  decide, 
in  a  particular  instance,  when  the  poet,  in  his  concep- 
tion and  execution,  is  passing  beyond  the  limits  of  his 
own  art  into  that  of  the  painter,  or  when  the  musician 
is  encroaching  upon  the  territory  of  the  poet. 

It  is  said,  how^ever,  that  Philosophy  is  bound  to 
determine  the  absolute  place  of  Art  in  the  scheme  of 
Nature,  before  we  can  formulate  the  laws  which  ought 
to  regulate  the  work  of  the  artist ;  and  no  doubt  artists 
in  late  periods  of  production  have  based  their  work  on 
abstract  systems  of  reasoning,  as  Wagner,  for  example, 
in  music,  and  the  English  Preraphaelites  in  poetry  and 
painting.  But  experience  teaches  us  to  look  with 
scepticism  on  the  absolute  principles  which  aesthetic 
philosophy  claims  to  have  a  right  to  apply  to  the 
practice  of  art.  They  are  the  product  of  a  science 
which,  according  to  Hartmann,  its  latest  exponent, 
professes  to  date  only  from  the  last  decade  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  which  has  been  investigated 
almost  exclusively  in  Germany,  and  which  thinks 
scorn  of  all  the  critical  inquiries  of  the  older 
Gentile  world,  including  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle. 
There  is  no  trace  in  it  of  that  progress  from  point 
to  point  of  discovery  which  marks  the  course  of 
physical  science.  Everything  is  at  sixes  and 
sevens ;  the  followers  of  Hegel  are  at  war  with  the 
followers    of    Schopenhauer  ;    the    terms    which    are 


INTRODUCTORY  183 


employed  in  the  classilication  of  the  Arts — Symbolic, 
Classical,  Romantic — are  not  of  universal  significance, 
but  are  the  legacy  of  a  chance  literary  tradition. 
As  to  what  aesthetic  philosophy  has  discovered  con- 
cerning the  relationship  of  the  arts  to  each  other, 
the  conclusion  of  Hartmann,  who  is  the  last  comer  in 
the  field,  is  thus  characterised  by  Mr,  Bosanquet : 
"  The  whole  passage,  which  I  have  quoted  because 
it  puts  Hartmann's  view  conveniently  together  and 
shows  the  outrageous  results  of  the  extreme  Wagnerian 
influence  (I  do  not  say  of  Wagner's  own  theoretical 
writings,  with  which  1  am  not  acquainted),  could 
hardly  have  been  written  by  any  man  with  a  true 
feeling  for  any  branch  of  art." 

These  last  words — words,  be  it  remembered,  of 
the  Historian  of  Esthetic  Philosophy — suggest  a  new 
consideration.  The  critical  rules  of  the  philosopher 
are  of  no  use  to  the  greatest  artists.  .111  great  Art 
precedes  criticism.  Homer  and  the  Greek  tragedians 
produced  their  work  without  reference  to  the  philo- 
sophic principles  afterwards  discovered  in  it  by 
Aristotle.  On  the  other  hand,  no  great  tragic  writer 
ever  composed  a  drama  according  to  the  ideal  recipe 
proposed  in  the  Poetics.  Criticism  was  practically 
unknown  in  England  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  who 
constructed  his  plays  according  to  his  own  sense  of 
fitness,  limited  only  by  the  external  conditions  then 
regulating  dramatic  production.  There  is  nothing  to 
indicate  that  Wagner's  theoretical  principles,  apart  from 
his  practice,  will  extend  the  area  of  operatic  music. 
When  Millais  advanced  in  tlie  practical  knowledge 


1 84  LAW  IN  TASTE 


of  his  art  he  abandoned  the  principles  of  the  Pre- 
raphaelites  on  which  he  had  founded  his  earliest  work. 
Now,  if  great  works  of  art  are  produced  without 
any  conscious  application  of  philosophic  principles, 
ought  we  not,  in  searching  for  the  law  of  taste,  to  look 
away  from  the  abstractions  of  philosophy  to  the  con- 
crete productions  of  art  ?  We  know  from  the  enduring 
feeling  of  pleasure  accompanying  the  work  of  the  great 
artist  that  the  method  he  has  taken  in  producing 
his  work  must  have  been  right.  We  have  no  such 
opportunity  of  verifying  the  reasoning  of  the  great 
philosopher.  The  philosopher  comes  with  his 
analysis,  claiming  the  whole  field  of  Nature  as  his 
dominion.  By  examining  poems,  and  statues,  and 
pictures,  he  raises  and  seeks  to  solve  vast  questions 
of  the  greatest  interest — as  to  what  is  the  essence  of 
Beauty ;  how  the  Ugly  is  related  to  the  Beautiful ; 
how  the  various  Arts  are  related  to  each  other — and, 
arguing  from  his  metaphysical  conclusions,  he  often 
ventures  to  prescribe  to  the  artist  practical  rules  of 
composition.  But  does  any  one  believe  that  if  a  late 
Greek  dramatist  had  composed  a  tragedy  on  the 
pattern  suggested  by  Aristotle,  he  would  have  been 
able  to  awaken  the  same  kind  of  pleasure  as  had  been 
felt  in  the  sublime  irregularity  of  the  Agamemnon 
and  the  Prometheus  of  ^schylus  ?  Obviously,  then, 
the  philosopher  must  have  left  some  essential  condi- 
tion of  life  out  of  his  analysis.  Meantime  the  artist 
has  doubtless  been  unconsciously  face  to  face  with 
many  of  the  abstract  problems  suggested  by  the 
philosopher,    but   when    he    comes,    for   example,   to 


INTRODUCTORY  185 


consider  how  the  harmony  of  his  composition  is  to  be 
reconciled  with  the  introduction  of  ugly  or  discordant 
elements,  behold,  the  difficulty  vanishes  in  the  effect. 
Solvitur  amhulando. 

There  is  but  one  Absolute  and  Divine  Source  of 
ideal  Beauty,  but  the  rays  that  proceed  from  it  are 
modified  in  their  passage  through  the  mind,  and  are 
thence  reflected  in  a  thousand  different  forms  accord- 
ing to  the  varying  genius  of  those  who  strive  to 
imitate  it.  Chinese,  Hindu,  Assyrian,  Egyptian, 
Greek,  and  the  modern  nations  of  Europe,  have  all 
embodied  in  the  Fine  Arts  their  ideas  of  what  is 
spiritual  and  unseen.  To  reduce  their  opposite  con- 
ceptions to  a  central  law  of  taste  would  be  impossible, 
nor  do  I  believe  that  there  is  real  evidence  of  progress 
and  development  from  one  type  of  Fine  Art  to  another. 
We  are  entitled  to  graduate  the  artistic  merit  of 
different  races,  just  as  we  discriminate  the  races  them- 
selves in  the  scale  of  intellect,  but  practically  the 
ideal  art  of  each  of  them  may  be  said  to  proceed  from 
within,  and  to  contain  in  itself  its  peculiar  law  of 
taste.  In  other  words,  the  law  of  taste  in  each  nation 
consists  in  the  development  of  its  own  genius  or 
character,  in  conformity  with  its  sense  of  natural 
Beauty. 

How,  then,  may  we  proceed  by  inductive  methods 
to  investigate  the  law  of  Character  in  national  Art  ? 
First,  from  the  outside,  by  observing  in  each  nation 
the  growth  of  its  powers  of  ideal  Imitation.  The 
purpose  of  all  the  Fine  Arts  is  eminently  social ; 
and   the   truly   great   artist    in    any   society  derives 


i86  LAW  IN  TASTE 


his  fame  from  his  power  to  give  expression  to  the 
common  perception  of  what  is  noble  and  beautiful. 
These  perceptions  are  always  clearest  and  most  un- 
clouded in  the  early  stages  of  a  nation's  life  while 
it  is  still  unconscious,  or  only  half-conscious,  of  the 
greatness  of  its  capacities  and  its  destinies.  It  is 
then  that  the  bent  of  the  national  genius  discloses 
itself  Faith  is  firm.  The  mind  receives  impressions 
vividly,  and  feels  no  doubt  about  their  truth.  The 
artist  selects  with  unerring  judgment  characteristic 
forms  of  expression,  and  proceeds  in  a  definite  direc- 
tion from  point  to  point  of  invention.  Again  there  is 
in  every  society  which  has  the  gift  of  ideal  imitation 
a  specially  fruitful  period  of  productive  art.  Such 
was  in  Greece  the  period  between  Homer  and  the 
death  of  Pericles,  when  all  the  Fine  Arts  reached  their 
zenith.  Such,  too,  in  the  history  of  Italian  painting 
was  the  period  between  Giotto  and  Raphael.  By  care- 
ful observation  of  the  works  of  art  produced  in  these 
periods  we  may  generalise  confidently  as  to  the  par- 
ticular bent  of  Greek  and  Italian  taste. 

But  the  aesthetic  character  of  any  society  may  also 
be  investigated  from  within,  by  tracing  the  natural 
turn  of  its  criticism,  in  other  words,  the  declaration  of 
law  by  those  who  judge  of  right  and  wrong  in  art  from 
the  effect  which  art  produces  in  the  mind.  There  comes 
a  stage  in  the  life  of  every  nation  when  it  emerges 
from  the  state  of  almost  intuitive  action  into  the 
full  consciousness  of  thought,  when  its  instinctive  un- 
wavering percejjtion  of  the  forms  of  external  nature 
is    obscured    or    distorted    by    the    vast   variety   of 


INTRODUCTORY  187 


interests  which  it  observes  in  itself.  The  growth 
of  commerce,  the  changes  of  religion,  the  revolutions 
of  politics,  the  conflicting  ideals  of  education,  the 
general  march  of  civilisation,  all  sweep  successively, 
like  advancing  tides,  over  the  primal  instincts  of 
infantine  society.  There  is  something  in  such  pro- 
gress like  the  stages  described  by  Wordsworth  in  the 
life  of  the  individual : 

The  youth,  who  daily  further  from  the  East 

Must  travel,  still  is  Nature's  priest, 

And  by  the  vision  splendid 

Is  on  his  way  attended  ; 

At  length  the  man  perceives  it  die  away, 

And  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day. 

But  in  the  life  of  nations  the  vision  never  entirely 
dies  away.  The  desire  of  ideal  imitation,  the  shadow 
at  least  of  Poetry,  remains  to  the  last ;  but  in  the 
late  days  of  national  life  artistic  creation  is  always 
accompanied  by  criticism.  The  historical  period  at 
which  Criticism  appears  varies  according  to  the 
character  of  different  nations.  Sometimes,  as  in 
Greece,  it  arises  in  the  natural  order  of  develop- 
ment, after  the  great  period  of  instinctive  creation 
has  exliausted  itself.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  classical 
period  of  French  literature.  Creation  and  Criticism 
seem  to  go  hand  in  hand.  In  Germany  Criticism 
preceded  the  artistic  creations  of  Goethe  and  Schiller. 
In  England  the  principles  of  Criticism  have  constantly 
fluctuated  according  as  the  character  of  artistic  pro- 
duction has  been  modified  by  internal  changes  of 
society.      But   amid  all   this  variety  there  may  be 


1 88  LAW  IN  TASTE 


traced  a  certain  unity ;  and  while  the  progress  of  art 
is  materially  affected  by  the  changes  of  critical  taste, 
taste  itself,  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  expression  of 
general  perception,  is  determined  by  that  National 
Character,  or  77^09,  which  is  the  original  source  of 
art. 

Life  in  Art  and  Law  in  Taste  are,  in  fact,  the 
opposite  sides  of  the  same  proverbial  shield.  Life  in 
Poetry,  as  I  have  already  said,  is  the  re-creation  in 
an  organic  form  of  the  universal  ideas  or  impressions 
which  the  mind  derives  from  Nature.  Law  in  Taste 
is  the  intuitive  perception  of  the  conditions  of  life 
which  constitute  the  organic  unity  of  the  work  of  art. 
Hence  Pope,  with  epigrammatic  truth,  associates  the 
spheres  of  Poetry  and  Criticism  : 

In  poets  as  true  genius  is  but  rare, 
True  taste  as  seldom  is  the  critic's  share. 
Both  must  alike  from  Heaven  derive  their  light, 
These  born  to  judge,  the  others  born  to  write. 

That  will  be  the  text  of  the  series  of  lectures  I 
propose  to  deliver.  To  deal  with  so  great  a  subject 
exhaustively  volumes  would  be  required.  But  I  hope, 
within  the  time  by  which  my  occupation  of  this  Chair 
is  limited,  to  suggest  to  you  lines  of  thought  which 
may  not  be  unprofitable.  In  my  next  lecture  I  shall 
dwell  on  the  idea  of  unity  common  to  all  Art,  as 
illustrated  in  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  the  great  repre- 
sentative of  Greek  character  and  Greek  criticism.  In 
the  three  following  lectures  I  shall  show  how  this 
idea  of  unity  reappears  in  the  respective  poetry  of 
the  French,  German,  and  English  nations,  and  how 


INTRODUCTORY  189 


it  is  modified  in  each  case  by  tlie  national  character, 
and  by  different  moral,  social,  and  political  conditions. 
I  shall  then,  in  four  lectures,  take  Chaucer,  Milton, 
Pope,  Tennyson  and  Byron  as  the  types  of  poetical 
art  in  different  periods  of  English  history,  in  order 
to  show  how  each  of  them  preserves  in  his  work  that 
unity  and  continuity  of  character  which  is  the  great 
law  of  taste.  My  concluding  lecture,  summing  up 
the  results  of  our  inquiry,  will  be  devoted  to  the 
practical  consideration  of  the  methods  which  ought 
to  be  pursued  in  liberal  education  with  regard  to  the 
trainincr  of  taste. 


II 

ARISTOTLE  AS   A  CRITIC 

If  ever  a  man  was  qualified  by  genius  and  circum- 
stances to  declare  the  fundamental  laws  that  govern 
the  production  of  works  of  fine  art,  it  was  Aristotle. 
Aristotle  was  the  fitting  representative  of  a  race 
whom  Nature  had  endowed  more  richly  than  any 
people  before  or  since  with  the  power  of  embodying 
beautiful  conceptions  in  ideal  forms  of  expression. 
He  lived  at  an  epoch  when  that  race  had  passed  indeed 
the  meridian  of  its  greatness,  but  was  far  from  having 
sunk  into  decrepitude.  Born  in  384  B.C.,  within 
twenty  years  of  the  death  of  Socrates,  he  died  in  322 
B.C.  within  twenty  years  of  the  battle  of  Cli?eronea. 
During  that  period  the  arts  of  Poetry,  Painting,  and 
Sculpture  continued  to  flourish,  so  that  Aristotle  was 
acquainted  not  only  with  the  principles  observed  by 
great  masters  in  the  full  maturity  of  art,  but  also 
with  the  devices  to  which  men  naturally  resort  when 
the  springs  of  natural  invention  are  beginning  to  fail. 
The  Poetics  abound  in  instructive  comparisons  be- 
tween the  opposite  aims  of  Polyguotus  and  Zeuxis 
in  painting,  of   Sophocles  and  Euripides  in  poetry  ; 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  191 

inferences  are  drawn  not  only  from  the  Iliad  of 
Homer  but  from  the  Deliad  of  Nichochares  ;  and 
the  contemporary  mimes  of  Sophron  and  Xenarchus, 
the  tragic  novelties  of  Carcinus,  and  the  metrical 
experiments  of  Chseremon,  furnish  matter  for  criticism 
not  less  interesting  than  the  established  practice  of 
the  elder  poets.  Philosophy  was  fully  developed,  and 
Aristotle  was  already  classed  among  the  greatest,  if 
not  allowed  to  be  the  greatest,  of  philosophers.  He  had 
examined  in  the  Politics  all  the  known  varieties  of  civil 
government ;  in  the  Ethics  the  laws  of  morality  ;  in 
the  Physics  the  laws  of  external  Nature  ;  in  the  Meta- 
2)hysics  the  first  principles  of  existence  ;  in  the  De 
Anima  the  constitution  of  the  soul  in  living  things. 
He  seems  to  have  approached  the  subject  of  Fine  Art 
and  Poetry  with  peculiar  interest  and  enthusiasm. 
Though  the  Poetics  is  not  an  elaborate  treatise  on 
technical  practice,  it  is  exhaustive  in  its  examination 
of  principle,  and  the  condensed  philosophical  epigrams, 
which  drop  from  the  writer  in  a  manner  elsewhere 
unusual  to  him,  show  how  deeply  he  had  thought  upon 
the  subject.  Every  species  of  poetry  which  the  Greek 
world  had  yet  produced  is  considered  by  him ;  so 
that  in  the  Poetics  we  have  a  study  of  all  the 
varieties  of  the  art  close  to  the  source  of  nature,  and 
unobscured  by  those  conflicts  of  nations  and  languages, 
of  religions  and  philosophies,  which  have  since  con- 
fused the  human  imagination. 

What  wonder  then  that  Aristotle's  treatise  on 
Poetry  should  have  been  accepted  by  a  large  portion 
of  the  world  with  the  reverence  due  to  the  utterance 


192  LAW  IN  TASTE 


of  an  inspired  law-giver  ?  That  in  France  the  oracles 
he  was  supposed  to  have  delivered  on  the  question  of 
the  Dramatic  Unities  should  have  been  allowed  to 
control  the  stage  practice  of  the  greatest  poets  ? 
That  in  Germany,  Lessing,  the  immediate  forerunner 
of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  should  have  avowed  his  faith 
that  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle  was  as  infallible  as  the 
Elements  of  Euclid  ?  The  wonder  rather  is,  that  in 
England  the  authority  justly  belonging  to  this  work 
should  not  have  been  recognised.  It  is  no  doubt 
the  case  that,  from  the  days  of  Sidney  and  Ben 
Jonson  down  to  the  time  of  the  First  Reform  Bill,  a 
considerable  section  of  the  English  world  of  letters 
have  endeavoured  to  reinforce  the  advocacy  of  their 
own  opinions  with  the  supposed  doctrines  of  Aris- 
totle ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Poetics  has  never 
been,  like  the  Ethics  and  Politics,  prescribed  as  a 
systematic  part  of  liberal  education  in  this  country  ; 
the  general  tendency  has  rather  been  to  deny  the 
judicial  competency  of  Aristotle  to  intervene  in  any 
controversy  of  modern  taste. 

This  disposition  is  mainly  the  result  of  a  belief  that 
Aristotle's  doctrines  are  in  some  way  hostile  to  our 
darling  liberty.  To  any  one  who  understands  the 
Poetics  it  will  be  clear  that  men  who  reason  thus  are 
the  victims  of  a  gross  superstition  ;  still,  it  is  unques- 
tionable that,  either  from  a  misunderstanding  of  his 
text  or  from  political  and  national  prejudices,  the 
meaning  of  the  philosopher  has,  in  many  passages,  been 
egregiously  perverted  by  his  would-be  disciples,  and 
in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  discredit  on  his  teaching. 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  193 

If  we  are  rightly  to  value  the  Poetics,  we  must 
separate  what  is  essential  in  the  treatise  from  what 
is  merely  local  and  accidental ;  and  I  shall  there- 
fore attempt  first  to  examine  the  principles  on 
which  the  reasoning  of  Aristotle  about  Fine  Art 
depends,  and  then  to  distinguish  these  from  the  purely 
technical  rules  which  have  been  elevated  by  critical 
tradition  into  such  disproportionate  importance. 

The  three  main  principles  underlying  Aristotle's 
criticism  are  :  ( 1 )  That  the  function  of  Poetry,  as  of 
all  Fine  Art,  is  imitation,  not  instruction  ;  (2)  That 
the  object  of  imitation  in  Poetry  is  the  Universal,  not 
the  Particular  ;  and  (3)  that  the  test  of  the  justice  of 
poetic  imitation  is  the  permanent  pleasure  produced  in 
society  by  the  work,  not  merely  the  pleasure  felt  by 
the  artist  in  creating  it.  With  regard  to  the  first  of 
these  propositions,  Aristotle  found  the  term  Imitation 
established  in  popular  usage ;  the  Greeks  had  per- 
ceived instinctively  that  the  first  aim  of  every  artist 
was  to  imitate  an  object.  It  was  for  this  very 
reason  that  Plato  objected  to  art  itself  as  immoral  ; 
since  he  supposed  it  to  be  the  aim  of  the  poet  and 
painter  to  copy  what  was  essentially  false,  as  being 
only  an  imperfect  resemblance  of  true  Being.  Aris- 
totle, with  profounder  insight  into  the  nature 
of  human  instinct,  accepted  the  popular  term, 
and  explained  the  origin  of  Poetry  as  follows  : 
"  Poetry  in  general  seems  to  have  sprung  from  two 
causes,  each  of  them  lying  deep  in  our  nature.  First, 
the  instinct  of  imitation  is  implanted  in  man  from 

childhood,    one    difi'erence    between    him    and    other 

o 


194  LAW  IN  TASTE 


animals  being  that  he  is  the  most  imitative  of  living 
creatures  ;  and  through  imitation  he  learns  his  earliest 
lessons  ;  and  no  less  universal  is  the  pleasure  felt  in 
things  imitated." 

I  venture  to  think  that  Aristotle  is  less  success- 
ful in  his  explanation  of  the  cause  of  this  universal 
instinct.  He  says  :  "  The  cause  of  this  again  is,  that 
to  learn  gives  the  liveliest  pleasure  not  only  to 
philosophers  but  to  men  in  general,  whose  capacity, 
however,  of  learning  is  more  limited.  Thus  the  reason 
why  men  enjoy  seeing  a  likeness  is  that,  in  con- 
templating it,  they  find  themselves  learning  or  infer- 
ring, and  saying  perhaps,  *  Ah,  that  is  he  ! '  For  if 
you  happen  not  to  have  seen  the  original,  the  pleasure 
will  be  due  not  to  the  imitation  as  such,  but  to  the 
execution,  the  colouring,  or  some  such  other  cause." 
The  objection  to  this  reasoning  is,  in  the  first  place, 
that  it  seems  to  run  counter  to  Aristotle's  general 
position  in  the  Poetics^  which  is,  that  Art  is  not 
directly  didactic ;  and  secondly,  that  the  very  fact  of 
our  being  pleased  with  the  recognition  of  a  likeness 
proves  that  we  have  already  acquired  a  knowledge 
of  the  original. 

I  imagine  that  our  pleasure  in  Fine  Art  arises 
primarily  from  imitation  itself,  because  we  thereby 
feel  both  in  ourselves  and  in  the  artist  a  cer- 
tain sense  of  divine  power,  which  brings  us  into 
closer  relation  with  the  Creator  of  things.  Many  of 
the  Greeks,  as  I  have  said,  regarded  Poetry  as  a  kind 
of  elementary  branch  of  philosophic  education,  but 
Aristotle  did  not  agree  with  this  opinion,  which  is 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  195 

indeed  confuted  by  the  constitution  and  history  of  man. 
A  single  illustration  of  the  matter  will  be  sufficient 
for  our  purpose.  Shakespeare's  Tempest  evidently 
aims  at  producing  pleasure  simply  by  means  of 
imitation  ;  it  is  in  no  sense  of  the  word  didactic. 
Ben  Jonson,  in  the  Prologue  to  Every  Man  in  His 
Hurrwur,  finds  fault  with  the  play  for  its  want  of 
moral  aim ;  and,  in  the  Prologue  to  Every  Man  out 
of  His  Humour,  he  defines  what  he  considers  should 
be  the  didactic  end  of  the  drama  : 

Who  is  so  patient  of  the  impious  world 

That  he  can  check  his  spirit,  or  rein  his  tongue  ? 

Or  who  hath  such  a  dead  unfeeling  sense 

That  heaven's  horrid  thunder  cannot  wake  ? 

To  see  the  earth  cracked  with  the  weight  of  sin. 

Hell  gaping  under  us,  and  o'er  our  heads 

Black  ravenous  ruin  with  her  sail-stretched  wing 

Ready  to  sink  us  down  and  cover  us, — 

Who  can  behold  such  prodigies  as  these 

And  have  his  lips  sealed  up  ?     Not  I ;  my  soul 

Was  never  ground  into  such  oily  colours, 

To  flatter  vice  and  dark  iniquity  : 

But  with  an  armed  and  resolved  hand, 

I'll  strip  the  ragged  follies  of  the  time 

Naked  as  to  the  birth. 

Now  the  answer  to  Jonson's  protest  is  that,  three 
centuries  having  since  gone  by,  for  one  man  that 
laboriously  studies  his  dramatic  satires,  powerful  as 
they  are,  ten  thousand  read  with  delight  such  a 
creation  as  The  Tempest.  Hence  it  may  be  inferred 
that  in  none  of  the  professedly  didactic  poems  of  the 
world,  such  as  the  De  Rerum  Natura,  the  Georgics, 
and  the  Essay  on  Man,  does  the  virtue  lie  in  the 


196  LAW  IN  TASTE 


philosophy,  but  rather  in  the  purely  imaginative 
ideas  which  the  skill  of  the  poet  enables  him  to 
group  about  his  central  philosophical  conception. 

"The  cause  of  this  again" — as  Aristotle  would 
say — is  involved  in  the  second  great  fundamental 
principle  of  the  Poetics,  namely,  that  Poetry  is  an 
imitation  of  the  Universal,  not  of  the  Particular. 
At  first  sight  there  is  to  us,  as  to  the  Greeks,  some- 
thing strange  in  a  proposition  like  this  ;  for  if  the 
end  of  Fine  Art  be  imitation,  close  fidelity  to  the 
original  would  seem  to  be  the  first  essential  in  an 
artist's  work.  But  immediately  we  begin  to  think, 
we  see  that  the  artist  is  not  a  copyist  of  Nature,  but 
a  rival  creator  with  her,  going  to  work  in  a  different 
way  and  with  a  diff'erent  end.  Nature  works  with 
materials  apprehended  by  sense  and  experience — 
flesh,  blood,  spirit,  and  the  like :  the  artist  works 
with  ideas  and  imitates  ideas  ;  and  thus,  though  his 
work  is  a  likeness  of  something  in  Nature,  yet  the 
likeness  exists  only  in  his  own  mind  and  in  the  mind 
of  those  whom  he  hopes  to  please.  To  put  the  truth 
in  a  concrete  form  :  Aristotle  says,  in  one  place,  that 
the  dramatist  deals  with  character,  passion,  and 
action.  Action,  passion,  and  character  are  objects  to 
be  observed  in  nature,  and  the  poet  must  produce  a 
likeness  of  them  ;  but  Aristotle  says,  in  another  place, 
that  the  dramatist  will  proceed  after  the  manner  of  a 
good  portrait  painter,  who  is  in  the  habit  of  making 
his  portrait  somewhat  more  beautiful  than  the  original. 
What  I  suppose  he  means  is,  that  the  inferior  portrait 
painter  will  indeed  be  able  to  reproduce  the  outward 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  197 

lines  and  colours  that  exist  in  the  face  and  form  of 
the  person  before  him,  but  will  not  be  able  to  repre- 
sent the  life  and  character  of  the  man  himself. 
These  are  manifested  in  the  expression  ;  the  good 
painter,  seizing  this,  will  divine  the  unseen  source 
from  which  it  springs,  and  will  be  able  to  heighten 
what  he  actually  observes  in  such  a  way  as  to 
express  more  beautifully  the  intention  of  Nature. 
He  will  thus  be  able  to  convey  through  the  like- 
ness of  an  individual  an  universal  idea  of  character. 
On  the  same  principle,  in  the  higher  walks  of 
painting,  we  see  that,  when  Raphael  represents  St. 
Paul  preaching  on  Mars'  Hill,  he  does  not  pay  atten- 
tion to  what  the  Apostle  says  about  himself,  that 
his  "  bodily  presence  was  weak  and  his  speech  con- 
temptible," but  paints  him  with  the  commanding 
figure  and  gesture  which  is  felt  to  be  appropriate  to 
the  greatness  of  the  message  he  is  delivering. 

What,  then,  is  this  Universal  in  Poetry,  if  in 
Painting  its  presence  may  be  detected  in  the  strictest 
kind  of  artistic  imitation  that  exists,  namely,  the 
art  of  the  portrait-painter  ?  Two  passages  from  the 
Poetics  may  be  cited  as  peculiarly  illustrative  of 
Aristotle's  meaning.  One  is  that  in  which  he  con- 
trasts Poetry  with  History  :  "It  is  evident  from 
what  has  been  said  that  it  is  not  the  function  of  the 
poet  to  relate  what  has  happened,  but  what  may 
happen,  what  is  possible  according  to  the  law  of 
probability  or  necessity.  The  poet  and  the  historian 
differ  not  by  writing  in  verse  or  in  prose.  The  work 
of  Herodotus  might  be  put  into  verse,  and  it  would 


198  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 


still  be  a  species  of  history.  Poetry,  therefore,  is  a 
more  philosophical  and  a  higher  thing  than  history  ; 
for  poetry  tends  to  express  the  universal,  history  the 
particular.  By  the  universal  I  mean  how  a  person  of 
given  character  will  on  occasion  speak  or  act,  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  probability  or  necessity  ;  and  it  is 
this  universality  at  which  poetry  aims  in  the  names 
she  attaches  to  the  personages.  The  particular  is, 
for  example,  what  Alcibiades  did  or  suffered.  In 
comedy  this  is  already  apparent ;  for  here  the  poet 
first  constructs  the  plot  on  the  lines  of  probability, 
and  then  inserts  characteristic  names — unlike  the 
lampooners  who  write  about  particular  individuals. 
But  tragedians  still  keep  to  real  names,  the  reason 
being  that  what  is  possible  is  credible  ;  what  has  not 
happened  we  do  not  at  once  feel  to  be  possible,  but 
what  has  happened  is  manifestly  possible,  otherwise 
it  would  not  have  happened." 

The  other  passage  occurs  in  the  25th  chapter  where 
Aristotle  is  defending  Homer  against  objectors.  He 
says :  "In  general  the  impossible  must  be  justified 
[in  poetry]  by  reference  to  artistic  requirements,  or 
to  the  higher  reality,  or  to  received  opinion.  With 
respect  to  the  requirements  of  art  a  probable  im- 
possibility is  to  be  preferred  to  a  thing  improbable 
and  yet  possible.  Again,  it  may  be  impossible  that 
there  should  be  men  such  as  Zeuxis  painted.  'Yes,' 
we  may  say,  *  but  the  impossible  is  the  higher  thing  ; 
for  the  ideal  type  must  surpass  the  reality.'  To 
justify  the  irrational  we  appeal  to  what  is  commonly 
said  to  be.     In  addition  to  which  we  urge   that  the 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  199 

irrational  sometimes  does  not  violate  reason  ;  just  as 
it  is  probable  that  a  thing  may  happen  contrary  to 
probability." 

In  these  profound  and  penetrating,  though  un- 
systematised,  observations  are  contained  all  the 
essential  principles  necessary  to  the  production  of  a 
work  of  Fine  Art.  The  aim  of  Fine  Art  is  to  create 
an  appearance  of  organic  nature  in  the  world 
of  ideas;  and  the  Universal  is  the  ideal  space 
which  the  imagination  must  secure  for  itself  in 
order  to  create  with  perfect  freedom.  The  highest 
work  of  Art  is  that  which,  while  presenting  the  most 
lively  image  of  Nature,  least  hampers  the  imagination 
by  suggesting  a  comparison  of  itself  with  particular 
things.  Thus,  in  Greek  tragedy,  the  dramatist  first 
obtained  for  himself  a  secure  base  of  poetic  proba- 
bility by  choosing  his  fable  from  the  accepted 
legends  of  his  race.  As  Aristotle  says,  the  things  he 
represented  were  said  to  have  happened  ;  how  they 
happened  was  a  matter  for  full  liberty  of  representa- 
tion within  the  limits  of  the  probable ;  and  it  was 
therefore  open  to  the  poet  to  introduce  into  his  work 
the  element  of  to  ^cXtiov,  or  the  ideal,  by  means  of 
music,  scenery,  uncommon  language,  raising  the 
stature  of  the  actors  above  the  mortal  standard,  and 
other  devices.  Shakespeare,  uj)  to  a  certain  point, 
works  exactly  on  the  same  lines  as  the  Greeks ;  that 
is  to  say,  he  finds  the  required  likeness  to  external 
nature  in  the  incidents  of  some  well-known  story, 
into  which  he  projects  all  the  vitality  of  his  own 
experience  ;  he  provides  the  ideal  atmosphere  of  his 


LAW  IN  TASTE 


tragedies  in  the  vagueness  and  uncertainty  of  the  time 
and  place  of  the  action,  and  in  the  lofty,  metaphorical, 
and  unreal  character  of  the  language  used  by  the 
actors.  Where  he  differs  from  the  Greeks  is  in  the 
closeness  with  which,  in  certain  parts  of  his  action, 
he  imitates  particular  nature,  as  in  the  Grave-diggers' 
scene  in  Hamlet  or  the  reasoning  of  the  Fool  in  Lear; 
a  device  which,  harmonising  with  the  character  of  the 
composition  as  a  whole,  not  only  furnishes  the  most 
agreeable  contrasts,  but  insensibly  enhances  the  feel- 
ing of  reality  and  probability  in  the  more  ideal  parts 
of  the  representation. 

Though  the  nature  of  the  Universal  can  best 
be  understood  by  reference  to  the  heroic  styles  of 
Poetry,  whether  epic  or  dramatic,  yet  its  presence  is 
equally  necessary  in  those  works  of  fine  art  in  which 
the  imitation  deals  with  the  more  ordinary  characters, 
actions,  and  passions  of  men,  the  adopted  vehicle  of 
expression  being  prose.  Aristotle  admits  the  Mimes 
of  Sophron  and  Xenarchus,  which  were  written  in 
prose,  into  the  sphere  of  poetic  imitation ;  and  in  the 
same  way  the  nature  of  the  Universal  in  art  may  be 
illustrated  from  such  works  as  Don  Quixote  and  the 
Waverley  Novels.  We  observe,  for  example,  the 
Universal  in  the  trial  scene  in  The  Heart  of  Midlothian. 
In  many  respects  this  is  an  imitation  of  things  as 
they  immediately  appear  to  the  senses;  the  story  being 
based  on  the  incidents  of  everyday  life,  the  locality 
being  an  ordinary  Court  of  Justice,  the  diction  of  the 
actors  a  close  reproduction  of  the  dialect  of  the  people. 
And  yet  the  extraordinary  effect  of  nature  which  the 


ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC 


scene  produces  in  the  mind  is  not  the  result  of  an 
accurate  study  of  particulars.  In  the  generalisation 
of  character,  in  the  selection  of  incidents,  in  the 
contrast  of  emotions,  the  fiction  is  so  artfully  raised 
above  the  level  of  experience,  that  the  imagination 
moves  in  an  ideal  world.  Helen  Walker,  the  heroine 
of  the  story  as  it  happened  in  reality,  did  not,  we  feel 
very  sure,  speak  with  the  poetry  that  pervades  the  whole 
character  of  Jeanie  Deans  ;  Effie  Deans  is  invested 
with  an  attractiveness  not  likely  to  have  been  pos- 
sessed by  her  original ;  if  the  father  of  the  prisoner 
fainted  during  the  actual  trial,  the  episode  would  not 
have  been  accompanied  with  all  the  picturesque  and 
pathetic  circumstances  imagined  by  the  novelist.  In 
every  direction  there  is  room  for  the  development  of 
TO  ySeXrioi/,  Aristotle's  indispensable  element  of  the 
ideal. 

Observe  this  again  in  a  yet  more  limited  sphere, 
the  set  of  circumstances  represented  in  Miss  Austen's 
Pride  and  Prejudice.  Everything  in  this  novel — 
time,  place,  action,  diction,  costume — reminds  us  of 
our  daily  life ;  and  yet  under  this  commonplace 
surface  a  great  artist  has  revealed  a  most  dramatic  con- 
flict of  universal  human  emotions.  To  have  imagined 
a  being,  manly,  honourable,  generous,  but  so  eaten  up 
with  the  pride  of  birth  and  rank  that  he  has  brought 
himself,  on  conscientious  principles,  to  separate  a 
friend  from  a  young  woman  with  whom  he  is  in 
love,  on  account  of  her  undesirable  connections ;  to 
bring  him,  by  the  irony  of  events,  to  fall  in  love 
with  the  sister  of  her  whom  he  has  injured,  a  person 


202  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  in 

possessing  all  the  fascinations  of  grace,  frankness,  and 
high  spirit,  supplying  by  the  lightning  rapidity  of 
her  wit  and  intuition  her  want  of  knowledge  and 
experience ;  to  exhibit  the  conflict  between  the  man's 
pride  and  his  passion  ;  to  cause  his  pride,  when  it 
can  no  longer  resist,  to  revenge  itself  for  its  defeat 
by  an  offensive  proposal  of  marriage  ;  to  paint,  in 
language  of  the  exactest  propriety,  the  maidenliness 
and  severity  with  which  the  heroine  rejects  the  suit, 
and  the  humiliation,  the  astonishment,  the  indigna- 
tion of  the  hero ;  finally,  to  describe  the  gradual 
process  by  which  the  fine  nature  of  the  man,  recognis- 
ing the  justice  of  his  sentence,  purges  itself  of  its 
master  vice  and  makes  a  generous  return  for  the 
indignity  done  to  it — never  was  there  a  more  admir- 
able Seo-t<f,  or  complication  of  plot,  in  any  Greek 
comedy  ;  never  a  more  well-conceived  TrepcTrereca,  or 
reversal  of  the  action  ;  never  a  more  satisfactory 
Xvcri<;,  or  denouement  of  the  moral  situation.  Justly 
may  we  transfer  to  the  creator  of  so  perfect  a  work 
the  compliment  which  was,  perhaps  with  some  exag- 
geration, paid  to  Menander :  "Oh  Nature  and  Jane 
Austen,  which  of  you  has  copied  from  the  other  ? " 

You  will  observe  that  the  essential  characteristic 
of  the  Universal,  according  to  Aristotle,  is  to  re- 
present "what  is  possible  according  to  the  law  of 
probability  or  necessity."  Herein  lies  the  great 
distinction  between  Fine  Art  and  Philosophy.  Both 
of  them  seek  to  express  Truth,  but  truth  of  a 
different  kind,  and  expressed  by  different  means. 
Philosophy    expresses    Truths    of    Fact,    Fine    Art 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  203 

Truths  of  Idea :  Philosophy  proceeds  by  means 
of  analysis,  Fine  Art  by  means  of  imitation  :  Philo- 
sophy seeks  to  arrive  at  the  causes  of  things  as 
they  are,  Fine  Art  to  create  an  image  of  things 
pleasing  to  the  mind.  As  society  advances  in  refine- 
ment, there  is  a  constant  tendency  among  artists  to 
encroach  on  the  sphere  of  philosophy ;  and  this 
practice  receives  some  encouragement  from  the 
language  of  Aristotle  himself,  who  says  that  "poetry 
is  a  more  philosophical  and  a  higher  thing  than 
history."  But  it  is  clear  that  Aristotle  did  not  mean 
by  this  to  imply  that  the  method  of  poetry  was  the 
same  as  the  method  of  philosophy,  for  he  says,  in 
another  place,  that  the  poet  bases  his  work  on  what 
is,  logically  speaking,  a  fallacy ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
poet  asks  the  reader  to  grant  him,  as  the  groundwork 
of  his  ideal  creation,  a  hypothesis  of  things  that  have 
at  the  time  no  actual  existence. 

This  is  indeed  the  method  of  all  great  dramatic 
and  epic  poets  and  of  the  masters  of  romantic 
fiction,  but  it  is  not  that  of  certain  other  great 
writers,  such  as  Ben  Jonson  and  Balzac,  who 
may  be  called  the  Realists  of  Art,  and  whose 
work,  as  being  the  product  of  robust  genius,  is  of 
high  intellectual  interest.  Ben  Jonson  and  Balzac 
endeavour  to  arrive  at  the  Universal  by  observing  the 
facts  they  see  before  them,  extracting  from  them 
some  general  motive  of  moral  conduct  or  some  prin- 
ciple of  social  action,  and  then  reconstructing  the 
result  of  their  analysis  in  an  ideal  form.  But  I  do 
not  think  any  one  would  venture  to  assert  that  their 


204  LAW  IN  TASTE 


creations  are  as  probable  and  life-like  as  those  of  the 
other  poets  I  have  mentioned.  They  are  at  once  too 
abstract  and  too  particular.  Ben  Jonson,  for  ex- 
ample, observed  with  unrivalled  accuracy  the  various 
humours,  follies,  and  vices  of  the  society  that  revolved 
round  the  Court  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I.  ;  he 
sought  to  perpetuate  them  in  an  ideal  form.  But  to 
us  his  persons  seem  almost  as  abstract  as  those  of  the 
old  Moralities,  and  even  in  his  own  day  he  was  obliged 
to  label  them  with  names  like  Morose,  Puntarvolo, 
Pennyboy,  Truewit,  which,  like  the  comic  masks  of 
the  Greeks,  might  in  some  degree  indicate  to  the 
audience  the  nature  of  the  character  intended.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  his  Alchemist,  it  is  almost  painful 
to  observe  the  vast  amount  of  learning  he  has  em- 
ployed in  idealising  a  form  of  imposture  which  has 
long  ceased  to  interest  society. 

The  case  is  not  very  dififerent  with  Balzac.  In 
Balzac  we  find  always  the  idea  of  the  Universal ;  the 
Seven  Deadly  Sins  make  their  presence  felt  in  every 
page  of  La  Comedie  Humaine ;  but  they  are  so  over- 
laid with  a  multiplicity  of  sordid  detail,  copied 
directly  from  real  life,  that  we  are  almost  justified 
in  doubting  whether  the  sins  themselves  have  not 
vanished  with  the  obsolete  society  of  Louis  Philippe. 
Both  Jonson  and  Balzac,  moreover,  disregard  another 
principle  of  Aristotle's,  namely,  that  the  drama  (and  of 
course  in  the  same  way  the  novel)  should  not  dwell 
overmuch  on  the  representation  of  evil.  If  good  on 
the  whole  did  not  preponderate  over  evil,  human 
society  could  not  exist ;  yet,  in  such  representations 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  205 

of  life  as  Pere  Goriot  or  La  Cousine  Bette,  the  interest 
of  the  reader  is  almost  entirely  absorbed  in  the  con- 
templation of  what  is  mean  and  bad.  Perhaps  it  will 
be  said  that  evil  is,  on  the  whole,  paramount  in  such 
a  drama  as  King  Lear;  but  here  the  characters  are 
raised  so  high  above  the  ordinary  level,  and  the 
action  is  thrown  into  so  remote  a  past,  that  the 
scenes  of  horror  and  wickedness  in  which  the  play 
abounds  do  not  press  too  strongly  upon  our  sense  of 
reality,  while  the  representation  of  evil  is  mitigated 
by  the  idea  of  religion  and  retributive  justice  : 

This  shows  you  are  above, 
You  heavenly  justicers,  that  these  our  crimes 
Do  speedily  avenge  ! 
And: 

The  gods  are  just,  and  of  our  pleasant  vices 
Do  make  us  plagues  to  scourge  us. 

Throughout  King  Lear  we  feel  that  Tragedy  is,  ac- 
cording to  Aristotle's  definition,  through  pity  and 
terror  effecting  a  purgation  of  these  emotions ;  it  is 
not  so  in  La  Comedie  ILumaine. 

I  almost  shudder  when  I  think  what  Aristotle 
would  have  said  about  the  conception,  formed  by  some 
of  our  modern  Realists,  of  the  law  of  poetic  probability, 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  method  by  which  Fine  Art 
makes  fictitious  personages  behave  and  speak  in  the 
sphere  of  ideal  action  as  we  feel  that  they  ought. 
For  example,  an  ingenious  writer  promises  to  tell  me 
a  story  of  life  in  the  time  of  the  Indian  Mutiny,  and 
I  look  forward  to  being  transported  out  of  myself 
into  scenes  of  heroic  adventure,  devotion,  and  self- 
sacrifice,  in  a  period  which  has  now  for  all  English- 


2o6  LAW  IN  TASTE 


men  begun  to  invest  itself  with  the  purple  atmosphere 
of  Romance.  But  I  have  not  been  long  introduced 
to  the  ideal  actors  in  the  tale,  before  I  find  myself 
mixing  familiarly  with  John  Nicholson,  or  Hodson  of 
Hodson's  Horse,  or  Herbert  Edwardes,  and  obliged  to 
follow  a  narrative  of  the  siege  of  Delhi,  related  with 
all  the  minuteness  of  a  Kinglake  or  a  Gardiner.  And 
as  I  listen  to  the  discourse  of  this  or  that  great 
historical  personage,  enlivened  with  the  "  said  he," 
or  "  said  she  "  of  the  novelist,  I  wake  out  of  my  dream 
of  imagination,  and  ask  with  an  inevitable  scepticism, 
"Did  they?" 

Again,  another  famous  story-teller  undertakes  to 
show  me  what  should  be  the  ideal  character  of  "  The 
Christian  "  in  the  nineteenth  century.  I  suppose  that 
I  am  about  to  travel  into  that  poetical  region  of  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress  which  I  can  so  readily  realise  in 
imagination,  and  visions  arise  before  me  of  the  Land 
of  Beulah,  and  the  Delectable  Mountains,  and  Vanity 
Fair,  and  the  House  Beautiful.  Nor,  indeed,  are  the 
action  or  the  actors  of  the  story  much  more  closely 
related  to  the  course  of  real  life  than  the  adventures 
of  Mercy,  or  Pliable,  or  Greatheart,  or  Mr.  Worldly- 
Wiseman  ;  so  that  something  of  a  moral  shock 
is  felt  in  the  imagination  when  such  very  abstract 
persons  appear  before  us  in  Roman  collars  and 
high-heeled  shoes,  delivering  their  souls  in  the 
comic  songs  of  the  Music  Hall  and  the  dialect  of 
the  slums.  If  only  the  author  had  known  what 
Aristotle  says  about  the  representation  of  character : 
— "  The  fourth  necessary  point  is  consistency ;   for. 


LECT.  11  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  207 

though  the  subject  of  the  imitation,  the  person  who 
suggested  the  type,  may  be  inconsistent,  still  he  must 
be  consistently  inconsistent " — if  only  the  novelist,  I 
say,  had  been  aware  of  this  principle  of  Fine  Art,  he 
would  hardly  have  attempted  to  blend  the  style  of 
Bunyan  with  the  style  of  M.  Zola. 

Let  us  try  again.  I  lately  studied  with  great 
interest  an  experiment  made  by  an  eminent  French 
novelist,  whose  name  is  favourably  known  in 
this  University,  M.  Paul  Bourget,  to  modernise  the 
story  of  Hamlet.  It  may  be  conjectured  that  M. 
Bourget,  if  he  had  lived  in  ancient  times,  would  have 
sympathised  with  the  contemporary  critics,  mentioned 
by  Aristotle,  who  found  fault  with  Homer  for  making 
the  Greeks  stand  still  while  Achilles  chased  Hector 
round  the  walls  of  Troy.  Perhaps  he  thought  that  a 
character  like  Hamlet  would  hardly  have  been  the 
product  of  the  dark  ages;  or  that  those  ages  were 
not  likely  to  have  possessed  Universities ;  or  to  have 
reasoned  philosophically  on  the  principles  of  the 
drama.  At  any  rate  he  set  himself  to  correct  these 
historic  improbabilities,  by  presenting  the  extremely 
modern  character  of  Hamlet  in  a  modern  setting. 

Up  to  a  certain  point  he  had  before  him  perfectly 
plain  sailing.  Nothing  was  easier  than  to  arrange 
the  Confessions  of  a  sentimental  young  Frenchman, 
corresponding,  to  a  certain  extent,  with  the  soliloquies 
of  Hamlet ;  to  make  the  hero  relate  how  almost  his 
earliest  recollection  was  the  discovery  of  the  murdered 
body  of  his  father;  how  he  vowed  to  discover  and 
slay  the  assassin  ;  how  his  mother,  a  kind  of  French 


2o8  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Mrs.  Copperfield,  married  again ;  how  he  him- 
self was  sent  to  a  Lycee,  in  which  his  brooding 
suspicion  began  to  settle  in  the  right  quarter. 

But  here  M.  Bourget's  difficulties  began.  The  ghost 
of  Hamlet's  father  is  an  essential  part  of  the  machinery 
of  the  play  ;  but  a  ghost  would  not  readily  assimilate 
with  the  atmosphere  of  a  French  novel ;  he  must 
therefore  be  replaced.  The  ingenious  author  replaces 
him  with — a  maiden  aunt,  a  sister  of  the  hero's  father, 
into  whose  confiding  ears  (of  course  in  strict  accord- 
ance with  the  law  of  probability)  the  deceased 
husband  has  poured,  through  a  series  of  letters,  his 
fears  and  jealousies  as  to  the  state  of  his  wife's  affec- 
tions. On  her  deathbed  the  maiden  aunt  signifies  by 
gestures  to  her  nephew  that  she  wishes  these  letters 
to  be  destroyed  without  being  read.  He  promises  to 
destroy  them,  but  nevertheless  reads  them,  an  action 
which  causes  him,  in  his  Confessions,  profuse  self- 
reproaches.    "  0  my  prophetic  soul, — my  stepfather ! " 

Our  modern  Hamlet  has  now  confirmed  his  sus- 
picions with  the  discovery  of  a  motive,  but,  being 
Hamlet,  he  is  still  far  from  having  made  up  his  mind 
to  act.  Shakespeare's  hero  was  able  to  advance  upon 
the  information  of  the  ghost  : 

The  play's  the  thing 
Wherein  I'll  catch  the  conscience  of  the  king. 

But  as  a  play  like  the  one  in  Hamlet  could  hardly 
be  acted  in  a  modern  French  drawing-room,  the 
avenging  son  can  only  try  to  frighten  his  stepfather 
by  dark  innuendoes,  showing  that  he  is  aware  of  his 


ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  209 


guilt,  and  hinting  that  an  old  juge  d' instruction  has 
his  eye  upon  him.  Devices  of  this  kind  naturally 
fail  to  shake  the  marble  composure  of  the  guilty  man, 
and  since  the  author  cannot  avail  himself  of  Rosen- 
crantz  and  Guildenstern,  or  the  voyage  to  England, 
or  the  fencing-match,  he  is  obliged  to  work  out  his 
denouement  by  one  of  those  never-failing  hypotheses 
which  Gaboriau  leads  us  to  suppose  are  the  usual 
instruments  of  the  French  police,  involving,  on  this 
occasion,  the  existence  of  a  black-mailing  brother  of 
the  stepfather  and  some  more  compromising  letters. 

Now,  at  the  end  of  such  a  story,  has  not  every 
one  a  critical  right  to  ask,  Is  this  really  the  way  in 
which  crime  is  committed,  discovered,  and  punished  in 
the  nineteenth  century  ?  On  the  other  hand,  is  there 
anything  in  Shakespeare's  treatment  of  the  legendary 
story  of  Hamlet  that  shocks  our  sense  of  poetic  prob- 
ability ?  And  if  the  answer  to  the  latter  question 
be  No  !  does  it  not  then  follow  that  every  man  who 
would  compose  a  work  of  Fine  Art  must  live  in  the 
atmosphere  of  to  ^eXrtov,  or  the  Higher  Reality  ? 

The  third  great  fundamental  principle  of  Aristotle's 
criticism  is,  that  the  test  of  all  true  Imitation  is  the 
enduring  pleasure  it  produces  in  the  mind  of  society, 
not  simply  the  pleasure  which  the  artist  feels  in 
creation.  I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  Pleasure 
nowhere  enters  into  Aristotle's  definition  of  Fine  Art ; 
and  yet  it  is  no  less  certain  that,  throughout  the 
Poetics,  the  pleasure  produced  for  mankind  in  general 
is  assumed  as  the  moving  cause  of  all  Poetic  creation. 
This  is  apparent  from  sentences  like  these :  *'  Every 


2IO  LAW  IN  TASTE 


one  feels  a  natural  pleasure  in  things  imitated  : " 
"  The  drama  is  superior  to  the  epic  because  it  affords 
the  most  vivid  combination  of  pleasures  : "  "  The  poet 
is  guided  in  what  he  writes  by  the  wishes  of  his 
audience ;  the  pleasure,  however,  hence  derived " 
(that  is,  from  the  happy  endings  of  tragedies)  "  is  not 
the  true  tragic  pleasure." 

And  this  reasoning  is  just.  For  man  being, 
as  Aristotle  says,  ^vaet  ttoXitckov  ^(pov,  created  for 
the  purposes  of  society,  the  poet  or  painter  is  not 
to  be  regarded  as  an  isolated  lunatic,  but  as  the 
representative  of  his  kind.  Were  it  otherwise, 
the  man  who  produced  a  series  of  monsters,  like 
those  described  by  Horace  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Ars  Poetica,  might  insist,  without  fear  of  con- 
tradiction, that  he  was  the  author  of  beautiful  works 
of  art.  Or  again,  as  indeed  often  happens,  the  co- 
operation of  a  number  of  clever  people  to  impose 
their  own  taste  on  society  might  be  taken  as  the 
determining  standard  of  artistic  beauty  and  truth. 
But,  indeed,  the  standard  lies  not  in  the  will  of  the 
artist,  but  in  the  constitution  of  human  nature. 
Doubtless  the  artist  has  alone  the  power  of  expressing 
the  unseen  truth  which  many  feel ;  the  great  artist, 
the  fine  artist,  therefore,  is  he  who  is  able  to  create 
an  image  of  what  is  universally  felt ;  who  knows 
equally  well  what  are  the  resources  and  what  the 
limits  of  his  art ;  what  means  he  possesses  to  snatch 
from  nature  her  mysterious  secrets ;  and  how  to 
resist  those  temptations  of  his  own  mind  that  are 
always  ready  to  betray  him  into  ambitious  error. 


ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  211 


The  artist  who,  though  he  may,  in  a  sense,  be 
a  man  of  genius,  has  not  attained  to  the  region 
of  fine  art,  will,  on  the  contrary,  insist  on  enforcing 
his  own  will  in  creation  against  the  instincts  and 
intuitions  of  society.  That  I  may  not  appear  to 
dogmatise,  let  me  attempt  to  apply  the  law  of 
Aristotle  to  the  two  great  opposing  factions  of  modern 
painters — the  Naturalists  and  the  Impressionists. 
Both  of  these,  bitterly  antagonistic  to  each  other,  are 
equally  contemptuous  of  the  claim  of  the  normally 
constituted  spectator  to  form  a  judgment  of  his  own 
on  the  general  effect  of  a  picture.  Yet  what  says 
Aristotle ?  "A  beautiful  object,  whether  it  be  a 
picture  of  a  living  organism  or  any  whole  composed 
of  parts,  must  not  only  have  an  orderly  arrangement 
of  parts,  but  must  also  be  of  a  certain  magnitude,  for 
beauty  depends  on  magnitude  and  order."  This  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  that,  if  a  man  attempt  to 
portray  a  beautiful  object,  without  regard  to  these 
necessary  rules,  he  will  fail  to  produce  a  pleasurable 
effect  on  the  mind. 

The  Naturalists  who  seek  to  reduce  painting  to 
the  level  of  photography,  adhere  so  strictly  to  the 
imitation  of  the  particular  in  Nature,  that  they  seek 
to  copy  every  hair  on  a  caterpillar,  every  leaf  on  a 
tree.  This  is  not  what  the  human  imagination  re- 
quires: "  An  exceedingly  small  object,"  says  Aristotle, 
**  cannot  be  beautiful,  for  the  view  of  it  is  confused, 
the  object  being  seen  in  an  almost  imperceptible 
moment  of  time."  At  the  opposite  extreme  the  Im- 
pressionists endeavour  to  introduce  into  painting  the 


LAW  IN  TASTE 


principle  of  Music.  I  met  the  other  day  with  the 
following  very  eloquent  description  by  Mr.  Whistler 
of  the  harmonies  produced  in  Nature  by  the  approach 
of  Night:  "  When  the  eveninoj  mist  clothes  the  river- 
side  with  poetry  as  with  a  veil,  and  the  poor  buildings 
lose  themselves  in  the  dim  sky,  and  the  tall  chimneys 
become  campanili,  and  the  warehouses  are  palaces  in 
the  night,  and  the  whole  city  hangs  in  the  heavens, 
and  fairyland  is  before  us — then  the  wayfarer  hastens 
home ;  the  working-man  and  the  cultivated  one,  the 
wise  man  and  the  one  of  pleasure,  cease  to  under- 
stand as  they  have  ceased  to  see,  and  Nature,  who 
for  once  has  sung  in  tune,  sings  her  exquisite  song  to 
the  artist  alone,  her  son  and  her  master,  her  son  in 
that  he  loves  her,  her  master  in  that  he  knows  her. 
To  him  her  secrets  are  unfolded,  to  him  her  lessons 
have  become  gradually  clear.  He  looks  at  the  flower, 
not  with  the  enlarging  lens  that  he  may  gather  facts 
for  the  botanist,  but  with  the  light  of  one  who  sees, 
in  her  choice  selection  of  brilliant  tones  and  delicate 
tints,  suggestions  of  future  harmonies." 

Every  one  must  admit  that  this  is  a  very  delicate 
analysis  in  words  of  an  imaginative  impression  on  the 
mind  ;  but  the  question  for  the  painter  is.  How  can  the 
vast  and  vague  image  of  a  city  at  night,  conveyed  to 
the  soul  of  the  artist  through  his  eye,  be  reproduced 
to  the  eye  and  soul  of  the  spectator  by  means  of  form 
and  colour  ?  We  are  in  the  region  of  to  uTreipov,  the 
Infinite.  "  No  object  of  vast  size,"  says  Aristotle, 
*'  can  be  beautiful,  for  as  the  eye  cannot  take  it  all  in 
at  once,  the  unity  and  sense  of  the  whole  is  lost  for 


I.KCT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  213 

the  spectator ;  as,  for  instance,  if  there  were  a  picture 
a  thousand  miles  long."  That  is  the  truth  of  the 
matter.  All  Fine  Art  requires  unity  of  conception  : 
there  is  a  Poetry  in  Painting,  a  wide  and  varied 
sphere  :  the  principle  of  to  ^ekrtov  may  be  variously 
expressed  in  the  general  truths  of  light  and  colour 
and  landscape,  as  they  are  in  the  art  of  Cuyp,  and 
Kembrandt,  and  Gainsborough,  and  Turner,  and  Con- 
stable :  but  everywhere  there  is  a  limit ;  and  the  test 
of  the  justice  of  the  ideal  imitation  is  the  feeling  of 
completeness  and  of  serene  and  harmonious  pleasure 
awakened  in  the  mind  of  the  beholder. 

I  think  I  have  said  enough  to  show  that  the 
greatness  of  Aristotle  as  a  critic  is  the  result  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  human  nature,  which  are 
the  foundation  of  every  organic  creation  of  art.  No 
critic  has  ever  equalled  him  in  his  profound  analysis 
of  the  constitution  and  the  operations  of  the  mind 
of  man  ;  no  critic  has  so  felicitously  illustrated  the 
soundness  of  his  abstract  principles  by  concrete 
illustrations,  drawn  from  the  practice  of  great  artists. 
I  have  left  myself  but  little  space  to  dwell  on  what 
I  venture  to  think  the  weak  points  in  the  criticism 
of  the  Poetics ;  nor,  indeed,  would  it  be  worth  while 
to  do  so,  were  it  not  that,  by  some  caprice  of  destiny, 
it  is  just  the  more  fallacious  of  Aristotle's  doctrines 
that  have  most  influenced  the  course  of  artistic  taste. 

His  critical  method  is,  it  seems  to  me,  attended 
by  two  disadvantages.  One  of  these  arises  out 
of  the  excess  of  his  own  genius ;  he  exaggerates 
the    functions   of  logical   analysis  in   Fine  Art.     So 


!i4  LAW  IN  TASTE 


long  as  he  restricts  his  unrivalled  powers  of  observa- 
tion and  induction  to  the  operations  of  nature  and 
the  positive  practice  of  great  artists,  his  reasoning  is 
incomparable  ;  but  his  good  angel  leaves  him  when, 
confiding  in  his  logic,  he  presses  on  into  the  territory 
of  invention  and  dares  to  lay  down  rules  for  the 
poets.  We  see  him  at  his  best  in  his  definition 
of  Greek  Tragedy :  "  Tragedy  is  an  imitation 
of  an  action  that  is  serious,  complete,  and  of  a 
certain  magnitude ;  in  language  embellished  with 
each  kind  of  artistic  ornament,  the  several  kinds 
being  found  in  separate  parts  of  the  play  ;  in  the  form 
of  action,  not  of  narrative ;  through  pity  and  fear 
effecting  the  proper  purgation  of  these  emotions." 
Every  word  of  this  is  original,  profound,  true  ;  and 
not  less  admirable  is  his  employment  of  logic  in  his 
25th  chapter  to  defend  the  practice  of  Homer  against 
prosaic  critics. 

Compare,  however,  with  passages  like  these  his 
employment  of  the  same  method  in  his  exhaustive 
enumeration  of  the  diff'erent  kinds  of  Recognition 
possible  in  Tragedy — how  superficial  and  trivial 
are  the  results  of  his  analysis  !  Or  see  him  striving 
to  define  what  must  be  the  structure  of  a  Perfect 
Tragedy,  by  proving  that  it  ought  not  to  be  this, 
that,  or  something  else  :  "  A  perfect  tragedy  should, 
as  we  have  seen,  be  arranged  not  on  the  simple  but  on 
the  complex  plan.  It  should,  moreover,  imitate  actions 
which  excite  pity  and  fear,  this  being  the  distinctive 
mark  of  tragic  imitation.  It  follows  plainly,  in  the 
first  place,  that  the  change  of  fortune  presented  must 


LECT.  11  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  215 

not  be  the  spectacle  of  a  virtuous  man  brought  from 
prosperity  to  adversity ;  for  this  moves  neither  pity 
nor  fear ;  it  simply  shocks  us.  Nor,  again,  that  of 
a  bad  man  passing  from  adversity  to  prosperity  ;  for 
nothing  can  be  more  alien  to  the  spirit  of  tragedy  ; 
it  possesses  no  single  tragic  quality ;  it  neither 
satisfies  the  moral  sense  nor  calls  forth  pity  or  fear. 
Nor,  again,  should  the  downfall  of  the  utter  villain 
be  exhibited.  A  plot  of  this  kind  would  doubtless 
satisfy  the  moral  sense,  but  it  would  inspire  neither 
pity  nor  fear ;  for  pity  is  aroused  by  unmerited 
misfortune,  fear  by  the  misfortune  of  a  man  like  our- 
selves. Such  an  event,  therefore,  will  be  neither 
pitiful  nor  terrible.  There  remains,  then,  the  char- 
acter between  these  two  extremes — that  of  a  man 
who  is  not  eminently  good  and  just,  yet  whose 
misfortune  is  brought  about  not  by  vice  or  depravity 
but  by  some  error  or  frailty.  He  must  be  one  who 
is  highly  renowned  and  prosperous — a  personage  like 
(Edipus,  Thyestes,  or  other  illustrious  men  of  such 
families." 

When  we  examine  this  attempt  to  limit  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  poet,  we  find  that  it  breaks  down  in  all 
directions.  In  the  first  place,  the  enumeration  of  the 
possibilities  of  tragedy  is  not  exhaustive,  for  not  only 
does  it  plainly  omit  to  conceive  the  structure  of  a 
play  like  Macbeth,  but  it  does  not  even  take  into 
account  the  tragic  composition  of  such  a  play  as  the 
Agamemnon.  Again,  the  premises  of  the  reasoning 
are  not  always  true :  for  example,  as  Professor 
Butcher  very  justly  points  out,  it  is  not  true  to  say 


2i6  LAW  IN  TASTE 


*'The  spectacle  of  a  virtuous  person  brought  from 
prosperity  to  adversity  moves  neither  pity  nor  fear;" 
otherwise  the  Antigone  would  not  be  a  good  tragedy. 
And  once  more  Aristotle  is  inconsistent  with  himself, 
for  whereas  he  has  said  elsewhere  that  "  unity  of  plot 
does  not  consist  in  the  unity  of  the  hero,"  he  now 
makes  everything  tragic  in  a  tragedy  depend  on  the 
character  of  the  hero  rather  than  on  the  nature  of  the 
action  as  a  whole. 

The  other  weak  side  in  the  criticism  of  Aristotle 
is  a  certain  defect  of  poetic  sensibility  or  intuition, 
probably  arising  out  of  the  circumstances  of  his  time. 
We  are  always  aware  in  the  Poetics  of  the  presence 
of  the  Genius  of  Prose,  which  makes  us  feel  that  the 
social  temperature  must  have  affected  both  the  creative 
instinct  of  the  artist  and  the  judgment  of  the  critic : 
it  is  difiBcult,  for  instance,  to  believe  that  such  hope- 
lessly matter  of  fact  objections  against  Homer  as 
those  which  Aristotle  notices  would  have  been 
possible  in  the  generation  of  ^^schylus,  or  even  in 
that  of  Aristophanes.  Poetic  invention  indeed  was 
by  no  means  dead,  but  it  had  passed  out  of  the 
region  of  Inspiration,  and  was  becoming  more  and 
more  mechanical  amid  the  processes  of  conscious  art. 
Though  Aristotle  allows  that  poetry  is  a  thing  in- 
spired, he  writes  throughout  his  treatise  as  if  all 
its  effects  could  be  attained  by  analysis,  and  the 
examples  with  which  he  supports  his  reasoning  show 
that  he  shared  the  preferences  of  his  age. 

When  he  speaks  of  Comedy  he  is  always  think- 
ing in   anticipation  of  the  prosaic  principles  of  the 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  217 

New  Comedy :  the  old  and  poetic  comedy  of  Aristo- 
phanes he  practically  ignores.  In  tragedy,  though 
his  ideal  seems  to  be  the  CEdipus  Rex,  and  though 
he  frequently  compares  Euripides  disadvantageously 
with  Sophocles,  yet  it  is  evident  that  the  practice 
of  Euripides  is  what  he  himself  best  understood. 
iEschylus,  on  the  other  hand,  he  rarely  mentions ; 
and  the  reasons  for  this  order  of  preference  may 
be  divined  from  his  view  of  the  relative  import- 
ance of  the  different  parts  of  Greek  tragedy. 
The  parent  source  of  the  Greek  drama  was  un- 
doubtedly the  Chorus,  both  as  being  the  vehicle  of 
expression  for  the  religious  feeling  on  which  the  idea 
of  tragedy  depended,  and  also  as  the  primal  institu- 
tion out  of  which  the  whole  structure  of  the  play  was 
gradually  evolved.  Hence  the  predominance  of  the 
Chorus  in  the  tragedies  of  ^Eschylus,  and  hence  too, 
in  consequence  of  the  cooling  of  religious  feeling  in 
society,  the  trivial  position  it  came  to  occupy  in  the 
plays  of  Euripides.  Aristotle  regards  the  Chorus 
merely  as  one  of  the  six  parts  of  which  every 
Tragedy  consists,  and  all  that  he  thinks  it  worth 
while  to  say  about  it  is,  that  "  Song  holds  the  chief 
place  among  the  embellishments." 

On  the  other  hand,  Aristotle  places  the  whole  life 
of  tragedy  in  the  plot.  "  The  plot,"  he  says,  "  is  the 
first  principle,  and  as  it  were  the  soul  of  a  tragedy." 
This  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  ideas  of 
Euripides,  Agathon,  and  tlieir  followers,  who  en- 
deavoured to  replenish  the  sinking  springs  of  inspira- 
tion  with   all  the  contrivances  of  artistic  ingenuity. 


2i8  LAW  IN  TASTE 


But  it  is  surely  not  true.  The  plot  of  a  play  is  the 
external  framework  which  holds  together  the  poetic 
organisation ;  it  is,  if  you  will,  the  backbone  of 
tragedy,  but  it  would  be  wrong  to  say  that  the  soul 
of  the  Eu'nienides  or  the  Prometheus  Vinctus  or  of 
Macbeth  lay  in  the  outward  form  of  those  works. 
The  soul  of  any  tragedy  lies  in  the  conception  of 
the  poet,  in  the  intensity  with  which  he  imagines 
the  reality  of  a  dramatic  situation,  and  breathes  life 
and  being  into  the  materials  from  which  he  creates. 
Out  of  the  essential  unity  of  the  poetic  conception 
the  plot  is  evolved  by  degrees;  but  in  embryo  the 
tragedy  was  in  existence  already  ;  all  the  plots  of 
the  really  great  tragedies  of  the  world  are  founded 
on  legendary  stories;  and  looking  at  the  matter  from 
the  opposite  side,  though  Aristotle  praises  Agathon, 
who  began  the  practice  of  inventing  his  own  tragic 
plots,  yet  since  none  of  this  poet's  plays  have  come 
down  to  us,  it  may  be  not  unfairly  inferred  that 
they  wanted  the  life  and  soul  that  produces  immortal 
pleasure. 

It  is  indeed  evident  that,  in  the  Poetics,  Aristotle 
attempts  to  lay  down  two  kinds  of  critical  law  of 
very  different  reach  and  value,  one  of  which  stands 
to  the  other  much  in  the  same  relation  as  Inter- 
national Law  to  Municipal  Law.  He  declares,  in  the 
first  place,  not  expressly  but  by  implication,  the  first 
principles  of  the  Law  of  Unity,  which,  being  based 
on  the  constitution  of  human  nature,  is  itself  the 
foundation  of  all  Fine  Art.  In  doing  this,  he  con- 
fronts the  poet  or  painter  as  the  representative  of 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  219 

the  rights  of  society.  He  says  to  the  artist  in  effect : 
"  Such  and  such  are  the  laws  of  the  human  mind ;  in 
your  compositions  you  are  bound  to  obey  them.  It 
is  of  course  open  to  you  to  disregard  these  limits,  and 
to  seek  to  overleap  them ;  it  is  even  possible  that,  if 
you  do  so,  you  may,  by  ingenious  and  novel  con- 
trivances, succeed  in  producing  momentary  pleasure  ; 
but  you  will  not  be  able  to  arouse  that  enduring  and 
universal  pleasure  which  I  assume  to  be  the  aim  of 
your  ambition :  hence  you  will  not  have  created  a 
work  of  Fine  Art." 

So  far,  well.  But  Aristotle  goes  beyond  this  : 
he  attempts  from  the  Law  of  Unity  to  deduce  a 
number  of  technical  bylaws,  and  to  impose  on 
taste  what  we  may  call  an  Act  of  Poetical  Uniformity. 
Here  he  is  plainly  proceeding  ultra  vires ;  he  is 
invading  the  liberties  of  the  poet,  attempting,  by 
means  of  logical  analysis,  to  restrict  the  prerogatives 
of  genius ;  and  hence  his  critical  edicts  cease  to  possess 
universal  authority.  He  failed  to  fathom  all  the 
conditions  necessary  for  poetical  creation  even  in  his 
own  age ;  much  less  could  his  analysis  exhaust  the 
springs  of  inspiration  in  the  times  that  were  to 
come. 

Yet  so  binding  is  the  force  of  logic,  so  vast  the 
intellectual  power  of  Aristotle,  that  his  followers, 
through  many  generations  of  the  world's  history, 
endeavoured  to  emphasise  whatever  was  most  faulty 
in  his  criticism.  The  deep  and  universal  truths  on 
which  his  reasoning  was  founded  lay  beneath  the 
surface ;    his   technical    rulings    were   explicit ;    and 


LAW  IN  TASTE 


these  the  Italian,  French,  and  a  few  even  of  the 
German  critics  after  the  Renaissance — some  from  a 
natural  preference  for  Absolute  Authority,  others 
because  they  confounded  the  laws  of  taste  with  those 
of  mathematics — sought  to  stereotype  into  a  critical 
code.  Without  reflecting  that  Aristotle  was  only 
speaking  as  a  Greek  to  Greeks,  and  drawing  his 
inferences  from  a  comparatively  limited  range  of 
observation,  the  Castelvetros,  the  Voltaires,  the 
Prussian  Fredericks,  accepted  his  local  and  particular 
rules  as  so  many  infallible  Vatican  decrees.  They 
misconstrued  the  text  of  the  Poetics ;  they  deduced 
from  the  most  casual  remarks  of  the  philosopher 
principles  of  poetical  orthodoxy  of  which  he  never 
dreamed ;  they  invented  binding  dogmas  about  the 
dramatic  unities,  and  the  limits  of  tragic  action  and 
character  :  in  short,  while  they  entirely  neglected  his 
doctrine  of  the  Law  of  Unity  in  Art,  they  disgusted 
all  lovers  of  rational  liberty  by  seeking  to  enforce  with 
pains  and  penalties  his  Act  of  Poetical  Uniformity. 

Time  has  cured  many  of  these  aberrations. 
Modern  scholars,  particularly  English  and  German 
scholars,  have  devoted  themselves  with  admirable 
patience  and  industry  to  the  elucidation  of  Aristotle's 
critical  treatise.  Among  these  we  his  countrymen 
have  every  reason  to  be  proud  of  Professor  Butcher's 
edition  of  the  Poetics.  In  this,  perhaps  for  the  first 
time,  the  general  principles  of  Aristotle's  philosophy 
have  been  made  to  illustrate  his  assthetic  opinions ; 
and  the  essential  and  universal  elements  in  his 
criticism  have  been  detached  from  what  is  merely 


LECT.  II  ARISTOTLE  AS  A  CRITIC  221 

local  and  accidental  with  such  beautiful  lucidity,  that 
there  is  now  no  reason  why  the  Poetics  should  not 
be  read  by  a  Headmaster  with  the  cleverer  boys  in 
any  of  our  great  Public  Schools.  All  that  Aristotle 
says  about  Imitation,  the  Universal,  Poetic  Truth, 
and  the  Law  of  Ideal  Probability,  is  made  to  emerge 
in  distinct  relief  like  the  clear  outlines  of  Greek 
sculpture.  And  these  are  eternal  truths.  No  man 
who  has  not  an  intuitive  or  an  acquired  knowledge  of 
what  Aristotle  means  by  these  principles  can  under- 
stand the  necessary  conditions  of  a  work  of  Fine  Art. 
Armed  with  this  knowledge,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
may  penetrate  the  organic  ideas  in  the  work  of 
Homer  and  Sophocles ;  he  may  confirm  the  truth  of 
Aristotle's  critical  principles  by  observing  how  exactly 
his  ideas  have  been  followed  by  those  who  were 
separated  from  him  by  generations  of  time  and 
diversities  of  religion  and  language  ;  he  may  apply 
them  to  test  the  value  of  the  artistic  novelties  which 
are  presented  for  contemporary  judgment.  Perhaps 
in  this  gradual  course  of  education  he  may  rid  him- 
self of  some  of  the  scepticism  implied  in  such  a 
maxim  as  De  gustibus  non  est  disputandum.  For 
human  nature  is  the  same  in  all  ages,  and,  in  the 
common  consent  of  mankind  about  what  is  really 
great  and  beautiful  in  art,  we  find  a  sure  intimation 
of  the  unity  of  the  soul  and  a  pledge  of  its  im- 
mortality. 


Ill 

THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY 

Fine  art,  as  I  liave  already  attempted  to  show,  is 
the  imitation,  by  the  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  and 
musicians  of  any  people,  of  the  idea  of  the  Universal 
in  Nature.  This  idea  springs  out  of  the  character 
of  the  race,  the  course  of  its  history,  the  common 
perceptions  of  its  men  of  genius.  As  the  life  of  a 
nation  develops,  the  practice  of  its  various  artists 
instinctively  falls  in  with  the  growth  of  society, 
advances  with  it  to  maturity,  and  languishes  in  its 
decline.  Sometimes,  as  in  ancient  Greece,  the  history 
of  art  seems  to  manifest  itself  with  almost  as  much 
certainty  and  regularity  as  the  life  of  a  flower,  or  a 
tree,  or  a  human  body.  The  Greek  poet  discovered 
by  a  kind  of  spontaneous  instinct  how  to  express  the 
idea  of  greatness  in  his  race  in  the  divine  simplicity 
of  hexameter  verse ;  the  Greek  musician  learned  at 
a  very  early  stage  how  to  imitate  human  passions  in 
dance  and  song.  With  the  remarkable  development 
of  civic  life  that  followed  the  Persian  invasion  the 
Greek  architect  and  sculptor  co-operated  to  embody  in 
marble  the  loftiest  ideas  of  religion.     Instinctively, 


LECT.  Ill      THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY       223 

in  the  same  aire,  the  dramatist  combined,  from  the 
epic  minstrelsy  and  the  religious  hymn,  a  mode  of 
imitation  fitted  to  express  the  profounder  ideas  of 
society  about  life  and  nature.  With  rare  and  delicate 
taste,  ^schylus  and  his  two  great  successors  made  the 
drama,  in  its  progressive  development,  a  mirror  for  all 
the  changes  of  moral  and  religious  feeling  that  trans- 
formed the  Athenian  mind  between  the  battle  of 
Marathon  and  the  Sicilian  Expedition.  And  when, 
after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea,  the  Greek  enthusiasm 
for  liberty  and  the  old  Hellenic  belief  in  the  Gods 
died  away  together,  the  loss  of  imaginative  energy  in 
society  reflected  itself  in  the  purely  prosaic  imitation 
of  the  New  Comedy.  In  all  directions  the  law  of 
Greek  art  was  embodied  in  the  works  of  great 
artists,  and,  as  I  said  in  my  last  lecture,  Aristotle's 
best  criticism  in  the  Poetics  is  not  new  legislation, 
but  the  declaration  of  the  law  of  Nature  already 
existing  in  art. 

Had  it  been  the  destiny  of  Aristotle  to  declare 
the  aesthetic  law  of  any  modern  European  nation,  his 
task  would  have  been  far  more  difiicult.  In  no 
Christian  society  has  the  artist  shown  the  same 
spontaneous  faculty  for  imitating  Nature  as  in  Greece. 
Many  obstacles  stand  between  Nature  and  the 
imagination  of  the  modern  artist.  To  begin  with, 
he  has  been  cut  off'  from  the  fountainhead  of 
his  primajval  instincts  by  the  conversion  of  his 
ancestors  to  Christianity.  Moreover,  the  nation  in 
modem  Europe  is  not  constituted  simply,  as  in  the 
small  Greek  states,  but  is  vast  and  complex,  composed 


224  LAW  IN  TASTE 


of  antagonistic  classes,  each  with  its  own  perceptions 
and  ideals,  which  often  baffle  the  attempt  of  the 
artist  to  divine  the  ideas  common  to  the  whole 
society.  Lastly,  the  modern  imagination  and  judg- 
ment are  bewildered  by  the  presence  of  surviving 
models  of  Hellenic  art,  which  constantly  oppose  them- 
selves to  the  ideas  derived  from  Christian  education. 
Nevertheless,  a  historic  examination  of  art  will  hardly 
leave  room  for  doubt,  that  the  varieties  of  ideal  imita- 
tion in  the  different  countries  of  Europe  have  been 
as  much  the  product  of  national  character,  as  was 
the  case  in  the  City  States  of  Greece ;  and  I  propose 
in  this  lecture  to  illustrate,  as  clearly  as  I  can  in 
the  time  at  my  disposal,  how  national  forces  have 
combined  to  give  a  dominant  bias  to  the  genius  of 
French  poetry. 

Experience  shows  how  closely  the  master  qualities 
of  the  French  character  still  correspond  with  Caesar's 
description  of  them.  The  assimilation  of  Visigothic 
and  Frankish  elements  have  not  materially  altered  in 
the  Gaul  either  the  brilliant  and  fickle  temperament, 
vividly  coloured  by  transient  emotions,  the  rapid  logical 
perception  of  things,  or  the  sense  of  artistic  form  and 
proportion  common  to  all  races  that  have  felt  the 
influence  of  the  Latin  mind.  As  this  national 
character  expands  in  the  course  of  French  history, 
there  passes  before  the  imagination  a  long  drama  of 
something  like  civil  war  between  two  mutually 
irreconcileable  factions  —  the  bourgeoisie  and  the 
feudal  aristocracy.  The  landmarks  of  the  struggle 
stand  forth  prominently ;  the  long  agonising  conflict 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY       225 

of  the  early  ages  between  the  Crown,  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  civil  law  and  order,  and  the  great 
vassals,  as  the  representatives  of  feudal  privilege  ;  the 
victory  of  the  Crown,  allied  with  the  bourgeoisie, 
under  Louis  XL  ;  the  religious  wars  between 
Catholics  and  Huguenots  ;  the  accession  of  Henry 
IV.  and  the  elimination  of  the  Huguenots  as  a 
political  power ;  the  wars  of  the  Fronde  and  the 
annihilation  of  the  political  power  of  the  feudal 
aristocracy ;  the  absorption  of  all  the  powers  of  the 
State  by  the  Crown  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  ;  the 
decay  of  the  Monarchy  in  the  eighteenth  century ; 
the  French  Revolution. 

As  illustratinoj  the  working  of  the  Law  of  National 
Character  in  literature,  nothing  can  be  more  remarkable 
than  the  vivid  reflection  of  this  course  of  political 
development  in  the  various  stages  of  French  poetry. 
There,  in  the  very  infancy  of  society,  may  be  observed 
the  trenchant  antithesis  between  the  genius  of  the  two 
opposing  classes  in  the  contrasted  styles  of  the  Pro- 
ven9al  lyric  and  the  fabliau  of  the  Trouvere  ;  the  one 
the  poetical  vehicle  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Castle, 
the  other  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  town.  We  see  the 
two  types  brought  into  deliberately  satiric  contrast 
in  the  famous  Romance  of  the  Rose,  in  the  latter  part 
of  which  the  bourgeois  John  de  Meung  mocks  at  the 
ideals  of  his  chivalric  predecessor  William  de  Lorris. 
The  alliance  between  the  Court  and  tiie  bourgeoisie 
is  symbolised  in  the  poems  of  Marot,  who  set  him- 
self to  refine  the  character  of  the  old  French  poetry 
to  suit  the  more  fastidious  taste  of  Francis  I.     On 

Q 


226  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  other  hand,  the  poetry  of  Ronsard,  the  repre- 
sentative, with  the  Pleiad,  of  the  party  of  the 
aristocracy,  reflects  in  a  new  form  the  old  tendency 
of  the  castled  nobility  to  mark  out  for  themselves  a 
manner  of  conception  and  expression  sharply  separated 
from  that  of  the  vulgar.  Ronsard's  movement,  in 
spite  of  his  real  genius,  is  seen  from  the  first  to  be 
against  the  inevitable  tendency  of  things,  and  is 
therefore  doomed  to  failure ;  and  in  the  same  way 
D'Aubigne's  Huguenot  ideals,  unable  to  make  head 
against  the  Catholic  tendency  in  the  French  nation, 
find  utterance,  like  a  lonely  "  Vox  Clamantis,"  in 
the  lofty  strains  of  Les  Tragiques.  Henry  IV. 
ascends  the  throne ;  and  with  Malherbe,  as  the 
dictator  of  poetical  taste,  the  victory  of  the  Mon- 
archical over  the  feudal  principle  in  French  politics, 
the  victory  of  reason  over  imagination  in  French 
poetry,  is  practically  decided. 

If,  turning  from  this  general  historic  view,  we 
ask  how  these  two  parties  respectively  manifested 
their  character  in  French  literature,  it  is  clear,  in  the 
first  place,  that  the  qualities  in  the  French  nation 
which  the  aristocracy  communicated  to  the  language 
were  of  the  feminine  order,  both  in  their  virtue  and  their 
defect.  How  remarkable  is  the  long  array  of  brilliant 
women  who  have  left  a  name  in  French  literature — 
The  Countess  of  Champagne,  Christine  de  Pisan,  The 
Marquise  de  Rambouillet,  Madame  du  Sable,  Madame 
de  Sevigne  !  How  powerful  an  influence  on  the  course 
of  refined  taste  was  exercised  by  the  Cours  d' Amour, 
the  Hotel  Rambouillet,  the  Salons  of  the  Pr^cieuses! 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY      227 

From  the  noble  ladies  of  France,  and  the  men  who, 
according  to  the  laws  of  chivalry,  declared  themselves 
theii*  servants,  the  French  idiom  acquired  that  ex- 
quisite vein  of  irony  and  innuendo  which  made 
French  conversation  for  so  long  the  standard  of 
manners  in  European  society,  and  French  prose  the 
finest  instrument  of  criticism,  letter-writing,  and 
diplomacy.  But  the  masculine  qualities  of  imagina- 
tion are  conspicuous  by  their  absence.  What  the 
French  aristocracy  wanted  in  their  literary  style  was 
substance,  sincerity,  a  sense  of  the  reality  of  things. 
Weigh  the  names  of  their  representative  men,  Charles 
of  Orleans,  Ronsard,  Voiture,  Chapelain,  St.  Amant, 
against  such  names  as  Rabelais,  La  Fontaine,  Moli^re, 
and  Voltaire,  representatives  of  the  bourgeoisie  ;  ob- 
serve the  triviality  of  matter  in  the  lyrics  of  the 
Troubadours,  in  the  poetry  written  for  the  Hotel 
Rambouillet,  in  the  romance  of  the  Grand  Cyrus; 
and  you  will  see  the  defeat  of  the  French  aristocracy 
in  the  conflict  of  History  explained  in  the  conflict  of 
Ideas. 

The  bourgeois  element  in  French  poetry  is  of  an 
evidently  opposite  kind.  It  has  none  of  the  romance, 
delicacy,  or  spiritual  imagination,  which  distinguish 
the  work  of  the  chivalric  party  ;  its  qualities  are, 
above  all,  good  sense,  shrewd  observation,  keen  logic, 
a  penetrating  appreciation  of  hypocrisy  and  unreality, 
an  unerring  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  an  Epicurean  en- 
joyment of  life.  Deprive  this  bourgeois  genius  of  its 
native  tendency  to  vulgarity,  by  putting  it  under  the 
patronage  of  the  Court,  give  it  subjects  for  imitation 


228  LAW  IN  TASTE 


suitable  to  its  knowledge  and  powers,  find  it  an 
instrument  of  expression  analogous  to  its  favourite 
fabliau ;  and  the  flower  of  the  French  imagination  will 
in  time  unfold  itself  in  the  Comedies  of  Moli^re  and 
the  Fables  of  La  Fontaine.  It  is  in  the  works  of 
these  two  writers,  perhaps  above  all  others,  that  we 
may  observe  the  operation  of  what  it  is  not  im- 
proper to  call  the  idea  of  Natural  Law  in  French 
Poetry. 

Moli^re  has  been  severely  censured  by  the  more 
austere  critics  of  France  as  a  careless  and  slovenly 
writer.  He  is  blamed  for  want  of  polish  in  his  style, 
for  his  incorrect  selection  of  metaphors,  for  his  auda- 
cious plagiarisms ;  and  all  these  reproaches  he  has 
to  some  extent  justly  incurred.  But  his  defects  are 
almost  the  inevitable  accompaniment  of  his  splendid 
qualities  as  a  comic  creator.  Moliere  imitated  the 
ridiculous  in  Nature  wherever  he  found  it.  When 
he  thought  that  Spanish  or  Italian  phrases,  or  the 
vulgarisms  of  French  idiom,  were  expressive  of  char- 
acter, he  used  them  without  any  regard  to  the  delicate 
nerves  of  the  French  Academy.  With  as  little  hesita- 
tion he  drew  on  the  inventions  of  the  classic  and 
Italian  dramatists  or  the  fabliaux  of  Boccaccio,  if 
they  furnished  him  with  convenient  plots  for  framing 
his  observation  of  what  was  deserving  of  ridicule  in 
his  own  society.  But  all  his  creations  are  eminently 
original.  Nowhere  else  than  in  France  could  such  uni- 
versal types  of  human  nature  as  M.  Jourdain,  Tartufe, 
and  Alceste  have  been  conceived  and  embodied.  No 
one  but  Moliere  could  have  observed  with  such  nice 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY      229 

precision,  and  have  expressed  in  dialogue  so  spark- 
ling and  lifelike,  the  essence  of  absurdity  in  the 
manners  of  Les  Precieuses  or  Les  Femmes  Savantes. 
As  a  mirror  for  such  universal  truths  of  Nature  the 
refined  literary  language  of  the  Academy,  and  the 
conventional  standard  of  manners  in  the  H6tel 
Rambouillet,  were  equally  inadequate.  Moli^re  in  his 
Comedies  doubtless  leans  to  farce ;  but  he  does  so 
because  the  old  popular  French  farces  furnished  him 
with  the  ideal  atmosphere  required  to  give  poetical 
truth  to  the  observed  realities  of  Nature.  Nor  do  his 
bourgeois  instincts  carry  him  into  excess.  His  seem- 
ingly bufibon  extravagance  of  conception  and  spon- 
taneous exuberance  of  expression  were  kept  within 
due  limits  by  the  sense  that  his  plays  were  to  be 
performed  before  the  most  fastidious  of  monarchs, 
who  would  never  have  tolerated  the  exhibition  of 
vulgarity  beyond  what  was  necessary  for  the  purposes 
of  art.  Hence,  in  spite  of  its  negligence,  the  composi- 
tion and  language  of  Moliere  are  in  the  highest  sense 
well-bred,  harmonious,  and  classic. 

Exactly  analogous  to  the  dramatic  practice  of 
Molifere  is  the  literary  practice  of  La  Fontaine,  except 
that,  as  the  poems  of  the  latter  were  intended  to  be 
read,  no  one  has  ever  blamed  him  for  incorrectness  of 
style.  La  Fontaine  makes  no  more  effort  than  Molifere 
to  raise  himself  into  a  consciously  ideal  atmosphere. 
He  cares  no  more  than  Moliere  did  for  the  praise  of 
absolute  originality ;  his  fables,  like  the  plots  of 
Moliere,  are  borrowed  from  the  inventions  of  pre- 
decessors, fabulists  such  as  Phijedrus,  Babrius,  Horace, 


230  LAW  IN  TASTE 


and  a  hundred  others.  But  through  all  this  borrow- 
ing and  adaptation,  the  unmistakable  character  of  the 
old  French  fabliau,  and  the  individuality  of  La 
Fontaine,  make  themselves  felt.  His  verses  breathe 
the  easy  Epicurean  air  characteristic  of  his  class. 
His  peasants  and  citizens  are  types  of  the  men  and 
women  whom  he  saw  in  the  farms  and  markets ;  his 
beasts  use  the  average  human  language  of  prudence 
and  good  sense.  In  the  flow  of  his  verse  we  listen  to 
the  natural  idiom  of  the  conversation  of  his  time. 
Nevertheless,  the  ideal  atmosphere,  required  for  the 
imitation  of  the  Universal,  is  never  absent  from  his 
creations,  and  knowing  as  he  did  that  he  was  writing 
for  refined  society,  his  poetry,  with  all  its  apparent 
ease,  is  in  reality  the  result  of  the  most  careful  selec- 
tion of  words  and  harmonies. 

The  dominant  bias  of  French  taste,  however,  dis- 
closes itself  not  merely  in  works  in  which  the  artist 
is  felt  to  be  dealing  with  materials  akin  to  his  own 
nature,  but  in  the  abstract  reasoning  by  which  men 
of  genius  have  endeavoured  to  regulate  practice  in  the 
higher  spheres  of  poetic  invention.  For  example, 
the  French  idea  of  law  in  art  is  strikingly  exhibited 
in  the  approved  rules  of  composition  for  the  tragic 
drama.  Unlike  the  dramas  of  Athens  and  of  England, 
the  tradition  of  the  theatre  in  France  is  not  of  popular 
origin,  but  is  the  late  creation  of  a  few  great  poets, 
accommodating  their  practice  to  the  taste  of  com- 
paratively refined  audiences.  There  was,  indeed,  a 
time  when  the  itinerant  stage  of  the  Middle  Ages 
found  a  welcome  among  the  French,  as  among  the 


LBCT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY       231 

English  people,  but  these  exhibitions  had  so  dwindled 
during  the  miserable  period  of  the  Hundred  Years' 
AVar,  that,  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  one 
company  of  actors,  in  the  Hotel  Bourgogne,  was 
sufficient  to  satisfy  the  dramatic  requirements  of  the 
whole  country.  When  the  taste  for  the  stage  began 
to  revive  the  poet  was  free  to  invent  for  himself,  and 
he  naturally  turned  for  his  models  to  the  tragedies  of 
Seneca,  never  meant  for  acting,  in  which  an  abstract 
situation  is  worked  out  by  means  of  rhetorical  har- 
angues and  sharply  pointed  dialogue.  The  form 
thus  adopted  proved  so  acceptable  to  French  taste, 
that,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  Voltaire  and  Diderot, 
it  kept  possession  of  the  stage  for  nearly  200 
years. 

Having  thus  grounded  the  practice  of  the  drama 
on  the  authority  of  Seneca,  the  French  poets  proceeded 
to  regulate  it  by  the  supposed  theory  of  Aristotle. 
Corneille  was  the  first  to  define  the  law  of  the  stage  in 
his  Discourse  on  the  Three  Unities  of  Action^  Time, 
and  Place.  He  assumed  that  the  external  form  of 
the  Greek  drama  was  something  immutable ;  that 
Aristotle  had  defined  its  changeless  rules  in  the 
Poetics;  and  that  these  rules  had  been  faithfully  ob- 
served in  his  own  tragedies.  Now  the  only  unity 
on  which  Aristotle  really  insists  is  Unity  of  Action ; 
and  in  his  Discourse  Corneille  plainly  shows  that 
he  does  not  know  what  Aristotle  meant  by  Unity 
of  Action.  Unity  of  Action  in  the  Poetics  means 
simply  the  representation  on  the  stage  of  a  fictitious 
story,  with  a  proportioned  beginning,  middle,  and  end, 


232  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 

involving  a  display  of  human  passion,  character,  and 
misfortune,  in  such  a  form  as  to  appear  probable  and 
lifelike  to  the  spectators. 

Shakespeare  and  the  Greek  poets  perfectly  under- 
stood the  working  of  this  fundamental  law.  So 
vividly  does  Shakespeare  conceive  his  ideal  situations 
as  a  whole,  that  he  even  realises  in  his  imagination 
the  state  of  the  climate  and  temperature,  as  when 
Hamlet  says  to  Horatio :  "  The  air  bites  shrewdly ; 
it  is  very  cold  ;  "  or  when  Duncan  praises  the  amenity 
of  Macbeth's  Castle : 

This  guest  of  summer, 
The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve, 
By  his  loved  mansionry,  that  the  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here  :  no  jutty,  friese, 
Buttress,  nor  coign  of  vantage,  but  this  bird 
Hath  made  his  pendent  bed  and  procreant  cradle  : 
Where  they  most  breed  and  haunt,  I  have  observed, 
The  air  is  delicate. 

So,  again,  in  ^s  You  Like  It,  when  Oliver  asks 
the  way  to  Rosalind's  cottage,  with  what  particular 
details  the  poet  brings  the  scene  before  us ! — 

Good  morrow,  fair  ones  :  pray  you,  if  you  know, 
Where  in  the  purlieus  of  this  forest  stands 
A  sheep-cote  fenced  about  with  olive  trees  ? 

To  which  Celia  replies  : 

West  of  this  place,  down  in  the  neighbour  bottom  : 
The  rank  of  osiers  by  the  murmuring  stream 
Left  on  your  right  hand  brings  you  to  the  place. 

The  fact  is,  that  both  the  Greek  and  English 
dramatists  were  the  natural  successors  of  the  minstrels 


LECT.  in       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY       233 

— the  former  of  Homer  and  the  cyclic  poets,  the  latter 
of  the  mediaeval  trouveres— and  their  imaginations 
were  accustomed  to  live  in  the  ideal  action  of  the 
story-tellers.  Now  for  a  story  in  itself  Corneille  cared 
nothing.  What  he  meant  by  unity  of  action  was  the 
unity  of  abstract  idea  in  a  drama.  He  understood 
very  well  the  nature  of  the  stage  effects  required  to 
produce  emotion  in  an  audience  ;  and  he  constructed 
his  plays  logically  and  scientifically  with  a  view  to 
securing  these  effects.  I  imagine  that  the  way  in 
which  he  composed  a  tragedy  was  something  like 
this :  First  he  searched  for  a  situation  in  which  he 
might  exhibit  a  conflict  between  the  will  and  the 
passions ;  then,  when  he  had  found  the  subject,  he 
filled  in  the  situation  with  the  characters,  and  de- 
termined their  relations  to  each  other  in  successive 
scenes ;  after  that,  he  thought  out  the  emotions  and 
sentiments  proper  to  each  scene ;  lastly,  he  coloured 
the  whole  of  the  dialogue  with  impassioned  rhetoric 
and  epigrammatic  points. 

Composing  on  this  principle,  Corneille  was  able  to 
exclude  from  the  structure  of  his  drama  every  exter- 
nal incident  that  was  not  necessary  to  the  evolution 
of  his  abstract  idea,  but  he  was  far  from  attaining 
unity  of  action.  He  strove  to  imitate,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  outward  form  of  Greek  tragedy,  and 
took  note  of  Aristotle's  saying,  that  it  is  not  necessary 
to  represent  on  the  stage  the  whole  of  a  recorded 
action.  But  he  did  not  observe  that  the  reason  of 
this  was  that,  in  the  Athenian  theatre,  the  audience 
were  all   familiar  with  the  whole  story  represented, 


234  LAW  IN  TASTE 


and  so  were  able  to  supply  from  their  imagination  the 
necessary  gaps  in  the  action.  But  this  is  not  the  case 
in  The  Cid.  Corneille,  in  this  play,  merely  selects 
from  the  story  of  the  Spanish  hero  such  episodes  as 
he  deemed  necessary  for  the  treatment  of  his  own  idea. 
We  are  plunged  at  the  opening  of  the  play  in  tnedias 
res.  We  do  not  know,  except  from  the  table  oi dramatis 
personae,  who  Don  Rodrigue  and  Chimene  are ;  who 
Don  Diegue  and  Don  Gomes  are,  or  what  were  the 
events  which  led  to  the  quarrel  causing  the  complication 
of  the  whole  drama.  The  dramatic  situation  resembles  a 
chess-board  after  the  game  has  been  developed  accord- 
ing to  one  of  the  conventional  openings.  The  love  of 
Rodrigue  for  Chimene  is  held  in  check  by  Rodrigue's 
filial  obligation  to  avenge  the  insult  offered  to  his 
father ;  the  love  of  Chimene  for  Rodrigue  is  checked 
by  the  duty  imposed  on  her  to  avenge  the  death  of 
her  father;  the  dramatic  interest  depends  on  the 
solution  of  the  psychological  puzzle. 

It  is  extremely  interesting  and  instructive  to 
observe  how  carefully  Corneille  applies  the  Law  of 
the  Three  Unities  to  a  tragedy  thought  out  on  this 
completely  abstract  principle.  He  wished  to  make 
the  play  appear  logical  to  the  audience  on  the  stage ; 
he  did  not  care  about  making  it  appear  real  to  the 
universal  imagination.  Accordingly,  he  pleads  apolo- 
getically, in  his  Discourse  on  the  Three  Unities,  that 
he  has  not  departed  from  the  rule  of  Unity  of  Place 
further  than  he  was  absolutely  obliged  by  the  nature  of 
his  subject.  And  as  to  the  Unity  of  Time,  since  the 
action  of  the  play  is  restricted  by  the  supposed  law 


LECT.  Ill      THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY        235 


to  twenty-four  hours,  the  dramatist  is  obliged  by  the 
course  of  events  to  make  Don  Eodrigue  first  kill  Don 
Gomes,  then  conquer  the  Moors,  then  come  back  to 
fight  a  second  duel  with  Don  Sanche ;  and  that  he 
may  do  all  this  within  the  prescribed  time  limits,  his 
father,  Don  Diegue,  opposes  the  desire  of  the  king  to 
give  The  Cid  an  interval  for  rest  and  refreshment, 
observing  that  it  is  nothing  for  a  man  of  his  son's 
heroic  valour  to  come  from  a  battle  to  a  duel  without 
making  a  pause ! 

And  yet,  though  Corneille  is  so  anxious  to  satisfy 
the  demands  of  a  dramatic  law  which  has  no  existence 
in  truth  or  nature,  he  sees  no  improbability  in  repre- 
senting Chim^ne  making  long  speeches  to  her  lady- 
in-waiting  in  order  to  show  the  audience  the  state  of 
her  mind  in  the  struggle  between  her  inclination  and 
her  duty  ;  no  improbability  in  bringing  Don  Eodrigue 
to  his  mistress,  after  he  has  killed  her  father,  to  entreat 
her  to  plunge  the  same  sword  into  his  own  heart ;  no 
improbability  in  causing  the  king  to  decide  that 
Chimene's  plea  for  vengeance  against  the  man  who 
has  killed  her  father  shall  be  satisfied  by  a  duel 
between  Eodrigue  and  Chimene's  selected  champion, 
the  prize  of  victory  being  the  hand  of  Chim^ne  her- 
self; no  improbability  in  leading  us  to  suppose,  at  the 
close  of  the  play,  that  Chimene  marries  her  father's 
slayer  and  lives  happily  for  ever  after !  Such  im- 
probabilities could  never  have  been  conceived  by  any 
poet  who  understood  the  moaning  of  Aristotle's  prin- 
ciple of  Unity  of  Action  in  the  imitation  of  Nature ; 
but  they  proved  no  obstacle  to  the  appreciation  of 


236  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  tragedy  by  an  audience  which  accepted  the 
artificial  hypothesis  with  which  the  poet  started,  and 
mainly  desired  to  have  their  own  love  of  antithesis 
and  rhetoric  satisfied  in  a  dramatic  form  of  representa- 
tion. 

Far  be  it  from  me,  as  an  Englishman,  to  speak 
with  disrespect  of  the  great  dramatists  of  France. 
Viewed  in  their  relation  to  the  taste  of  French  society, 
plays  like  Horace,  Cinna,  Phedre,  and  Athalie 
seem  to  be  marvels  of  dramatic  skill  and  invention. 
My  argument  is  that  a  society  like  that  of  France 
was  incapable  of  conceiving  tragic  action  like  that 
found  in  the  plays  of  iEschylus  and  Shakespeare. 
The  action  of  the  poetic  drama  in  Greece  and  England 
was  a  reflection  of  widespread  popular  energy,  of 
freedom  of  thought,  speech,  and  deed,  of  national 
greatness  and  patriotism,  exalted  by  an  inward  sense 
of  power  and  by  the  defeat  of  such  foreign  enemies 
as  Xerxes  and  Philip  II.  No  such  inspiring  air 
of  liberty  stirred  the  imagination  of  France  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  With  what  feelings  would 
Louis  XIV.,  retaining  in  his  memory  his  youthful 
experiences  of  the  Frondist  wars,  have  witnessed  on 
the  stage  the  suff"erings  of  legitimate  kings,  deprived, 
as  in  Richard  II.  and  Macbeth,  of  their  thrones  and 
lives  by  the  usurpation  of  ambitious  subjects?  How 
would  his  monarchical  pride  have  revolted  against 
such  a  spectacle  as  King  Lear,  stripped  of  his  last 
shred  of  authority,  the  sport  of  the  elements,  the 
companion  in  adversity  of  fools  and  madmen  !  What 
would  the  Jesuits  have  said  to  the  daring  doubts  and 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY       237 


speculations  of  Hamlet's  conscience  ?  Absolutism 
and  centralisation  called  for  another  order  of  dramatic 
exhibition  in  France.  Driven  from  her  free  range  in 
external  Nature,  the  Muse  of  Tragedy  retired  into  the 
recesses  of  the  human  soul,  whose  inner  conflicts  she 
might  represent  without  rousing  the  political  suspicion 
of  king  or  cardinal.  Yet  even  here  she  was  haunted 
by  the  phantoms  of  her  own  self-consciousness.  The 
overpowering  sense  of  the  authority  of  Aristotle,  the 
anticipation  of  the  verdict  of  the  associated  critics  of 
the  Academy,  the  oppressive  idea  of  a  dramatic 
standard  formed  by  ancient  models  of  unrivalled 
excellence,  all  these  influences  co-operated  to  make 
the  French  dramatist  voluntarily  fetter  himself  in 
his  imitation  of  nature.  The  Law  of  the  Three  Unities 
is  an  illustration  of  the  tendency  in  the  French 
character,  as  developed  by  the  history  of  France,  to 
repress  the  liberties  of  imagination  by  the  analysis  of 
Logic. 

As  the  French  law  of  the  stage  is  defined  by 
Corneille  in  his  Discourse  on  the  Unities,  so  the  law 
of  French  literary  taste  is  expounded  by  Boileau  in 
the  Art  Poetique.  Critics  are  apt  to  undervalue 
poems  of  the  class  of  Horace's  Ars  Poetica  and  Pope's 
Essay  on  Criticism,  because  they  regard  them  as 
abstract  treatises  on  taste,  containing  cold  and 
commonplace  maxims  of  composition ;  whereas  their 
real  interest  and  importance  lie  in  the  fact  that  they 
are  declarations  of  law  by  a  victorious  literary  party. 
The  Ars  Poetica  and  the  Epistle  to  Augustiis  were 
manifestoes    of    the    Hellenising    party    in    Roman 


238  LAW  IN  TASTE 


literature,  directed  against  those  who  favoured  the 
rude  facility  of  poets  like  Lucilius  and  Plautus.  The 
Essay  on  Cnticisrti  is  an  argument  in  verse  against 
the  taste  represented  by  the  Metaphysical  Poets  of 
the  seventeenth  century  in  England.  More  suggestive 
than  either  of  these  poems,  because  more  relentless 
and  uncompromising,  the  Art  Poetique  stands  out 
prominently  as  the  final  declaration  of  Law,  by  the 
literary  representatives  of  the  French  bourgeoisie,  in 
alliance  with  the  Crown  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the 
Classical  Humanists  on  the  other,  against  the  aristo- 
cratic literary  party  represented  in  the  coteries  of  the 
Precieuses.  The  artistic  value  of  the  apparently 
abstract  rules  formulated  in  the  poem  consists  in 
their  oblique  way  of  reflecting  on  the  practice  of 
the  Scuderys,  St.  Amaut,  and  Pradon.  The  Art 
Poetique  is  the  formulated  expression  of  the  law  of 
French  poetry,  first  recognised  nearly  a  century  before 
in  the  verses  of  Malherbe,  whose  praises  Boileau  so 
enthusiastically  sounds.  "  Lastly,"  he  says,  "  came 
Malherbe,  the  first  in  France  to  give  an  example  of 
just  cadence  in  verse,  to  show  the  power  of  a  word  in 
its  right  place,  and  to  restrict  the  Muse  to  the  laws 
of  duty.  Restored  by  this  wise  writer,  our  language 
no  longer  offered  any  rude  shock  to  the  refined  ear. 
Stanzas  learned  how  to  close  gracefully ;  one  verse 
no  longer  ventured  to  overlap  another.  Everything 
approves  the  justice  of  his  laws,  and  this  faithful 
guide  still  serves  as  a  model  to  the  authors  of  our 
time.  Walk  in  his  steps  ;  love  his  purity  ;  imitate  the 
clearness  of  his  happy  style." 


i.ECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY       239 

What,  then,  was  the  ideal  which  Boileau,  by  his 
reasoning  and  illustrations,  set  before  the  French 
poet  ?  The  expression  of  Truth,  Reason,  Logic.  The 
aim  was  not  wanting  in  life  and  vigour.  Genius, 
says  the  critic,  at  the  opening  of  the  Art  Poetique,  is 
indispensable,  but  the  medium  in  which  genius  must 
work  is  good  sense.  "  Tout  doit  tendre  au  bon 
sens."  And  again,  "Good  sense  must  prevail  even 
in  song."  Hardly  so  deeply  laid  as  the  foundation 
of  Horace,  "  Scribendi  recte  sapere  est  et  principium  et 
fons,"  the  rule  implies  that  the  standard  of  the  correct 
imitation  of  nature  is  the  lucid  perception  and  logic 
of  the  bourgeois  mind,  aided  by  the  refined  manners 
of  the  court.  "  Etudiez  la  cour,  connaissez-vous  la 
ville."  Above  all,  whatever  subject  is  chosen,  the 
poet  must  go  to  its  essence,  and  not  be  satisfied  till  he 
has  found  the  exact  and  perfect  form  of  words  required 
for  the  expression  of  the  thought.  Not  a  word  about 
Beauty,  Liberty,  Imagination,  Fancy.  In  every  phrase 
we  hear  the  voice  of  the  stern  proscriber,  the  Sulla  of 
poetry,  on  the  watch  to  put  on  the  list  for  massacre 
some  dangerous  partisan  of  the  Plotel  Rambouillet, 
who  has  managed  to  escape  critical  notice. 

Boileau  was  well  aware  that  Poetry  could  not 
dispense  with  the  aristocratic  element  in  language ; 
and  being  at  war  with  the  principle  favoured  by  the 
social  aristocracy,  he  sought  to  fill  the  void  in  his 
critical  system  by  allying  himself  with  the  literary 
aristocracy  of  the  Renaissance,  and  exalting  the 
authority  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics.  The 
principle  was  excellent  so  long  as  it  meant  no  more 


24©  LAW  IN  TASTE 


thau  self-criticism  by  the  highest  standard  of  antiquity. 
But  Boileau  was  almost  inevitably  carried  into  error 
by  his  logic.  He  regarded  all  the  types  of  verse  com- 
position met  with  in  the  history  of  French  literature  as 
immutable  moulds  of  thought ;  and  he  fancied  that  the 
classic  propriety  of  each  could  be  determined  by  settled 
rules.  "  Every  poem,"  he  says,  "  shines  with  its  proper 
beauty.  The  rondeau,  Gallic  by  birth,  has  the  artless- 
ness  of  nature,  the  ballad,  strictly  subject  to  its  old 
maxims,  often  owes  a  lustre  to  the  caprice  of  its 
rhymes.  The  madrigal,  more  simple  and  more  noble 
in  its  style,  breathes  gentleness,  tenderness,  and  love." 
Thus,  in  opposition  to  his  own  and  Horace's  teach- 
ing, that  the  form  of  poetry  must  necessarily  adapt 
itself  to  the  thought,  he  speaks  as  if  poetry  lay  in 
stereotyped  forms  of  versification.  In  spite  of  his 
foundation  of  sound  reasoning,  he  came  insensibly 
to  identify  the  imitation  of  Nature,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  good  sense,  with  the  mere  external  imitation 
of  Greek  and  Roman  poets. 

Two  examples  will  show  the  inconsistencies 
into  which  his  logic  betrayed  him.  Among  the 
various  types  of  poetry  which  he  found  himself 
obliged  to  define  was  the  Eclogue.  According  to 
the  dictates  of  good  sense  this  form  of  poem  must, 
he  says,  avoid  the  two  extremes  of  pompous  elevation 
on  the  one  hand,  and  of  rustic  meanness  on  the  other. 
An  easy  abstract  rule ;  but  what  does  it  practically 
mean  ?  "  Between  these  two  excesses,"  says  Boileau, 
"  the  path  is  diflficult.  In  order  to  find  it,  follow 
Theocritus  and  Virgil.    Let  their  feeling  compositions. 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY      241 

dictated  by  the  Graces,  never  quit  your  hands ;  turn 
them  over  by  night  and  day.  They  alone  in  their 
learned  verse  will  be  able  to  teach  you  by  what  art 
an  author  may  without  meanness  lower  his  style  ; 
how  to  sing  of  Flora  and  the  fields,  of  Pomona  and 
the  woods  ;  how  to  animate  two  shepherds  to  contend 
on  the  flute,  to  celebrate  the  allurements  of  love's 
pleasures ;  to  transform  Narcissus  into  a  flower ;  to 
cover  Daphne  with  bark  ;  and  by  what  art  at  times  the 
eclogue  invests  the  country  and  the  woods  with  consular 
dignity."  Would  a  poet  who  in  Louis  XIV.'s  time 
acted  obediently  on  these  instructions  have  been  imi- 
tating Nature  according  to  the  law  of  Good  Sense  ? 

Again,  Boileau  found  himself  much  perplexed  how 
to  apply  the  principle  of  Good  Sense  to  his  idea  of  an 
epic  poem.  The  epic,  he  says,  sustains  itself  by  faith 
and  lives  by  fiction  ;  therefore  you  cannot  dispense 
in  a  poem  of  this  kind  with  the  machinery  of  pagan 
mythology.  Hence  it  is  impossible  to  write  a  Christian 
epic.  "  In  vain,"  he  says,  alluding  to  the  attempts  in 
this  direction  of  poets  in  the  anti-classic  camp ;  "in 
vain  do  our  deluded  authors,  banishing  from  their 
verse  these  traditional  ornaments,  strive  to  make 
God,  the  saints,  and  the  prophets  act  like  the  deities 
sprung  out  of  the  poets'  imagination,  take  the  reader 
into  Hell  at  every  step,  and  introduce  him  to  Ashtaroth, 
Beelzebub,  and  Lucifer  alone.  The  awful  mysteries  of 
the  Christian  faith  are  incapable  of  gay  and  brilliant 
ornament.  On  every  side  the  Gospel  presents  to  the 
mind  the  spectacle  only  of  Repentance  and  Judgment, 

and  the  inexcusable  mixture  of  fiction  gives  to  its 

R 


242  LAW  IN  TASTE 


truths  an  air  of  fable.  What  an  object  to  offer  to  the 
eye,  the  devil  blaspheming  against  heaven — the  devil, 
whose  aim  it  is  to  abase  the  glory  of  your  Hero,  and 
who  often  disputes  the  victory  with  God ! " 

True  enough  in  its  application  to  the  feeble  inven- 
tion of  Scud(5ry  and  his  companions,  a  criticism  like 
this  only  proves  that  the  French  were  incapable  of 
producing  a  great  epic  poem.  It  does  not  prove  that 
there  was  anything  fundamentally  wrong  in  the  con- 
ception of  Paradise  Lost.  And  the  same  rigid 
restrictive  logic  characterises  all  Boileau's  devices  with 
regard  to  diction  and  versification — the  exclusive  use 
of  the  Alexandrine,  the  caesura  always  in  the  middle 
of  the  line,  the  avoidance  of  the  hiatus  and  the  "  en- 
jambement,"  the  choice  of  words  to  harmonise  exactly 
with  the  movement  of  the  rhythm, — all  which  are  only 
the  final  declaration  by  the  Academic  dictator  of  the 
laws  first  promulgated  by  Malherbe.  For  the  time 
the  victory  of  Boileau  and  the  ideas  of  the  cultivated 
bourgeoisie  over  the  party  of  mediaeval  Romance  was 
complete.  Nor  was  it  a  mere  transient  fashion  of 
taste.  For  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  the 
Law  of  Classicism,  as  defined  in  the  Art  Poetique, 
exerted  an  irresistible  authority.  In  spite  alike  of  the 
half-hearted  efforts  of  Voltaire  to  enlarge  the  liberties 
of  dramatic  action,  and  of  the  experiments  of  Diderot  in 
sentimental  comedy,  the  classic  style,  founded  on  the 
Law  of  the  Three  Unities,  reigned  supreme  upon  the 
French  stage  through  the  eighteenth  century.  But 
it  was  a  party  triumph,  a  Pyrrhic  victory,  won  by  the 
vigour  of  a  certain  element  in  society,  and  liable  to  be 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY      243 

reversed  when  the  class  from  which  the  movement 
sprang  lost  its  vitality.  Undermined  by  the  growth 
of  natural  science,  by  the  philosophy  of  the  encyclo- 
paedists, and  by  the  sentimentalism  of  Eousseau,  the 
imposing  structure  of  French  classicism  fell  almost  at 
the  first  discharge  of  artillery  brought  against  it  by  the 
Romantic  party  after  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons. 
It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  it  deserved  its  fate. 
But  at  the  same  time  it  would  be  well  for  us  English- 
men to  examine  very  carefully  the  true  lesson  to  be 
learned  from  the  triumph  of  French  Romanticism. 
The  Law  of  Classic  Taste  in  France  could  not  have 
remained  paramount  for  so  long  a  period  ;  its  author- 
ity could  not  have  been  instinctively  recognised  by 
so  many  great  creative  intellects,  or  so  clearly 
defined  by  a  succession  of  able  critics,  if  it  had  not 
represented  something  real  and  positive  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  French  character.  And  lookino^  at 
the  matter  historically,  when  we  see  that  the  idea  of 
the  manner  in  which  Nature  ought  to  be  imitated  in 
Poetry,  as  expressed  in  the  Art  Poetique,  is  actually 
embodied  in  the  poems  of  La  Fontaine  and  Moliere, 
and  that  the  idea  of  the  structure  and  versification 
proper  to  the  drama  is  the  same  in  the  tragedies  of 
Racine  and  Voltaire  as  in  the  criticism  of  Boileau, 
then  candid  minds  will  allow  that,  however  narrow 
may  have  been  the  sphere  of  imitation,  and  ^however 
restricted  the  perception  of  harmony,  both  adapted 
themselves  to  an  irresistible  tendency  of  things  in 
the  development  of  French  society.  The  great  error 
of  the  Romanticists  was  that  they  ignored  the  exist- 


244  LAW  IN  TASTE 


ence  of  this  historic  law.  As  a  revolt  in  the  sphere 
of  art  and  imagination  their  movement  was  fully- 
justified,  and  nothing  would  have  been  easier  for 
them  than  to  show  that  a  law  of  taste,  which  might 
have  been  suitable  for  the  times  of  Louis  XIV.,  was 
quite  unsuitable  for  the  times  of  Charles  X. 

What  the  Romanticists  wanted,  however,  was  not 
a  revolt  but  a  Revolution,  The  rules,  distinctions, 
practices,  and  traditions,  which  had  been  the  result 
of  so  much  ingenious  thought  and  labour,  were  to 
be  swept  away,  and  Poetry  was  to  find  for  herself  a 
basis  in  first  principles,  supposed  to  be  entirely  modern. 
What  were  they  ?  The  manifesto  of  the  victorious 
Romanticists  is  to  be  found  in  the  Preface  to  Victor 
Hugo's  Cromivell,  which  founds  its  reasoning  on 
this  colossal  generalisation  :  "To  sum  up  the  facts 
we  have  just  observed,  Poetry  has  three  Ages,  each 
of  which  corresponds  with  an  epoch  of  society  :  Ode, 
Epic,  Drama.  Primitive  times  are  lyric,  ancient 
times  are  epic,  modern  times  are  dramatic.  The  Ode 
sings  eternity ;  the  Epic  solemnises  history ;  the 
Drama  paints  life.  The  character  of  the  first  kind  of 
poetry  is  naivete;  the  character  of  the  second  sim- 
plicity ;  the  character  of  the  third  truth.  The 
rhapsodists  mark  the  transition  of  the  lyric  poets  to 
the  epic  poets,  as  the  romance-writers  from  the  epic 
poets  to  the  dramatic  poets.  Historians  arise  in  the 
second  epoch ;  chroniclers  and  critics  in  the  third. 
The  personages  of  the  Ode  are  Colossi :  Adam,  Cain, 
Noah  ;  those  of  the  Epic  are  giants  :  Achilles,  Atreus, 
Orestes ;  those  of  the  Drama  are  men  :  Hamlet,  Mac- 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY       245 

beth,  Othello.  The  Ode  derives  its  life  from  the 
ideal,  the  Epic  from  the  grandiose,  the  Drama  from  the 
real.  In  a  word,  this  threefold  Poetry  springs  from 
three  great  sources — the  Bible,  Homer,  Shakespeare." 
The  upshot  of  this  reasoning  is,  that  the  end  of  the 
modern  or  romantic  drama  is  to  paint  real  character, 
and  Victor  Hugo  tells  us  very  naively  how  this  was 
done  in  the  case  of  Cromivell.  He  had  for  a  long 
time  accepted  the  portrait  of  the  regicide,  painted  by 
Bossuet,  as  true  to  life  ;  but,  happening  to  come  across 
an  old  document  of  the  seventeenth  century,  he  dis- 
covered that  the  portrait  did  not  resemble  the 
original.  The  idea  must  therefore  be  corrected,  and 
the  proper  place  for  correcting  it  was  the  Drama. 
Accordingly  he  read  a  vast  number  of  books,  from 
which  he  generalised  the  character  of  the  man  and 
his  times,  chose  a  dramatic  moment  in  the  life  of  his 
hero  which  would  enable  him  to  exhibit  his  real 
motives  to  the  reader,  surrounded  him  with  more 
than  sixty  other  dramatis  personae,  and  finally  com- 
pleted the  portrait  of  the  character  in  a  play  which 
extended  itself  to  about  12,000  lines.  It  seems, 
indeed,  to  have  struck  Victor  Hugo  that  there  was 
something  paradoxical  in  the  fact  that  a  composition 
founded  on  jesthetic  principles,  in  an  epoch  of  the 
world  in  which  the  drama  was  the  natural  vehicle  of 
imaginative  thought,  could  not  possibly  be  acted,  and 
he  made  a  half  promise  that,  at  some  future  time,  he 
would  adapt  Cromwell  for  the  stage.  I  am  not 
aware,  however,  that  he  ever  reduced  his  ideas  to 
practice. 


246  LAW  IN  TASTE 


But  what  Victor  Hugo  did  not  perceive  was  that, 
while  he  professed  to  be  sweeping  away  all  French 
dramatic  tradition,  while  he  imagined  himself  to  be 
imitating  Shakespeare,  and  to  be  creating  in  a  spirit 
of  unfettered  liberty,  he  was  showing  a  complete 
ignorance  of  the  principle  on  which  Shakespeare's 
plays  are  constructed,  and  was  unconsciously  follow- 
ing, though  with  a  variation,  the  stage  principles  of 
his  predecessors.  As  I  have  already  said,  Shake- 
speare's method  of  dramatic  creations,  like  that  of  the 
Greeks,  is  to  reduce  what  was  originally  a  well- 
known  epic  story  into  such  a  form  as  will  please  the 
imagination  of  spectators  in  a  theatre  ;  the  method 
of  the  French  playwright  is  to  analyse  an  idea  in  his 
own  mind  and  then  to  reproduce  it  in  a  dramatic 
shape.  It  matters  not  that  the  idea  which  Hugo 
analysed  was  that  of  a  single  man's  character,  while 
that  which  Corneille  analysed  was  a  psychological 
situation ;  that,  in  TJie  Cicl,  the  spectacle  to  be  con- 
templated is  a  conflict  between  Love  and  Honour, 
and,  in  Cromivell,  the  conflict  of  motives  in  the  mind 
of  a  regicide  ;  in  both  cases  the  imaginative  process  is 
the  same,  the  logical  combination  of  abstract  ideas  ; 
in  both  cases  the  artistic  result  is  fundamentally  the 
same,  a  play  depending  for  its  efi'ect  on  rhetorical 
speeches  and  epigrammatic  points.  This  is  the 
method  of  Seneca,  not  the  method  of  Shakespeare. 

Examine,  again,  the  motto  of  another  great 
standard-bearer  of  Romanticism,  Theophile  Gautier. 
His  principle,  "  Art  for  Art's  sake,"  seems  to  promise 
the  artist  unlimited  liberty  in  imitating  Nature,  pro- 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY      247 

vided  he  is  possessed  of  adequate  skill.  When  illus- 
trated by  Gautier's  own  practice,  however,  his  maxim 
evidently  implies  a  determination  to  identify  the 
methods  of  poetry  with  the  methods  of  painting. 
Gautier  endeavoured  to  imitate  Nature  in  words, 
exactly  in  the  same  w^ay  as  the  painter  imitated  her 
in  form  and  colour.  Now,  in  my  lecture  on  "  Poetical 
Decadence  "  I  fully  admitted  that  the  art  of  poetry 
included  an  element  analogous  to  the  art  of  painting, 
as  may  be  plainly  seen  in  the  descriptions  and  similes 
of  great  poets  like  Homer,  Virgil,  Milton,  Spenser,  and 
Ariosto.  Nor  do  I  deny  that  Gautier's  poetry  abounds 
in  admirable  pictorial  tours  de  force,  such  as  the 
humorous  picture,  in  his  J^maux  et  Camees,  of  Winter 
as  an  old  violinist.  "  With  red  nose  and  pale  face,  and 
with  a  desk  of  icicles,  he  executes  his  theme  in  the 
quartet  of  the  Seasons.  He  sings  with  an  uncertain 
voice  old-world  quavering  airs  :  his  frozen  foot  warms 
itself  while  it  marks  the  time.  And  like  Handel,  whose 
wig  lost  its  powder  when  he  shivered,  he  makes  the 
white  sprinkling  of  snow  fly  from  the  nape  of  his  neck." 
But  to  confine  the  function  of  poetry,  as  Gautier 
did,  to  word-painting  is  surely,  in  the  first  place,  to 
form  a  meagre  conception  of  the  art,  and  in  the 
second  place,  this  supposed  invention  of  the  Romanti- 
cists is  really  nothing  more  than  an  application  of  the 
old  classic  law  of  Boileau,  that  the  poet  is  bound  to 
find  for  his  verse  the  word  exactly  corresponding 
with  the  image  in  his  mind.  Turn  to  the  Lutrin, 
and  Boileau's  picture  of  the  Treasurer  of  La  Chapelle 
in  bed  will  furnish  you  with  a  brilliant  sample  of  the 


248  LAW  IN  TASTE 


word-painting  which  was  Gautier's  whole  poetical 
stock-in-trade  :  "  In  the  dark  retirement  of  a  deep 
alcove  is  piled  a  costly  feather-bed.  Four  pompous 
curtains  in  a  double  circle  defend  it  from  the  light  of 
day.  There,  amid  the  calm  and  peaceful  silence,  reigns 
over  the  swan -down  a  happy  indolence,  and  there 
the  prelate,  fortified  by  breakfast,  and  sleeping  a  light 
sleep,  waited  for  dinner.  Youth  in  full  flower  beams 
in  his  countenance  ;  his  chin  descends  by  two  storeys 
on  to  his  breast,  and  his  body,  thick- set  in  its  short 
stature,  makes  the  bed  groan  beneath  its  lazy  weight." 
Do  not  the  instances  I  have  given  furnish  in 
themselves  an  answer  to  the  reasoning  of  the  Romanti- 
cists? Had  these  children  of  the  Revolution  pos- 
sessed real  self-knowledge  they  would  have  per- 
ceived that  their  most  successful  work  was  conceived 
in  accordance  with  the  old  classical  law,  and  they  would 
have  aimed  only  at  such  an  amplification  of  that  law  as 
would  give  free  play  to  their  own  gifts  and  genius. 
Unfortunately  they  were  animated  by  a  spirit  not  of 
comprehension  but  exclusion.  The  party  of  the 
Romanticists  had  gained  the  upper  hand,  and  they 
were  determined  to  proscribe  and  massacre  the  party 
of  the  Classicists  as  ruthlessly  as  the  Classicists  of  the 
seventeenth  century  had  proscribed  and  massacred 
the  party  of  the  Precieuses.  Romanticism  under 
Louis  XIV.  and  under  Louis  Philippe  was  equally 
the  protest  of  a  faction  against  the  inevitable  tend- 
ency of  things  ;  but  in  the  one  case  it  was  the  struggle 
of  a  social  caste  against  the  principle  of  Absolut- 
ism,  in   the  other  of  a  literary  coterie  against  the 


LECT.  Ill     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY        249 

principle  of  Equality.  Just  as  Mdlle.  de  Rambouillet 
and  her  friends  sought  to  separate  themselves  from 
the  vulgar  world  by  the  nicety  of  their  manners  and 
language,  so  did  Theophile  Gautier  and  his  followers 
seek  to  shock  the  instincts  of  the  bourgeoisie  by  their 
red  waistcoats  and  outrageous  verses,  "For  us," 
says  Gautier,  in  his  account  of  the  Romantic  move- 
ment, "  the  world  divided  itself  into  '  Flamboyants  ' 
and  '  Neutral  Tints,'  the  one  the  object  of  our  love, 
the  other  of  our  aversion.  We  wanted  life,  light,  move- 
ment ;  audacity  of  thought  and  execution,  a  return  to 
the  fair  period  of  the  Renaissance  and  true  antiquity ; 
we  rejected  the  tame  colouring,  the  thin  and  dry 
design,  the  compositions  resembling  groups  of  dwarfs, 
that  the  Empire  had  bequeathed  to  the  Restoration." 
To  the  foreign  critic  it  seems  that,  as  in  French 
politics  the  centralising  principle  has  overpowered 
local  liberty,  so  in  French  art  the  native  tendency 
is  for  logic  to  prevail  over  imagination.  Whatever 
literary  party  has  been  dominant  in  the  taste  of 
French  society  has  sought  to  establish  its  supremacy  by 
imaginative  Analysis.  The  result  has  been  to  develop 
in  the  art  of  our  neighbours  great  beauty  of  abstract 
Form,  a  splendid  capacity  of  lucid  expression,  but 
more  and  more  to  turn  away  the  creative  impulse  of 
the  artist  from  the  imitation  of  universal  ideas  of  life 
and  action.  In  the  rival  theories  and  practice  of  the 
modern  French  Naturalists  and  Impressionists  I  seem 
to  detect,  under  a  changed  form,  the  old  party  struggle 
between  the  Classicists  and  the  Romanticists.  In  one 
direction,  I  see  the  disciples  of  Gustave  Flaubert,  by 


250  LAW  IN  TASTE 


a  new  application  of  the  precepts  of  Boileau,  employ- 
ing all  the  resources  of  precise  and  artistic  language 
to  decorate  the  sordid  commonplace  of  bourgeois  life ; 
in  another,  M.  Anatole  France,  as  the  successor  of 
Renan,  arresting  the  transient  impressions  of  his  own 
mind  in  a  succession  of  delicate  phrases,  which  would 
have  been  the  delight  of  the  Hotel  Rambouillet.  But, 
in  both  directions.  Analysis  undermines  the  conscience 
with  the  suggestion  of  subjects  and  ideas  which  lie  at 
the  very  foundation  of  the  Family  and  the  State. 

Must  these  things  be?  Is  it  impossible  for  the 
French  novelist  to  contemplate  Man  under  any  aspect 
except  that  which  involves  some  relation  to  his 
neighbour's  wife  ?  impossible  for  him  to  transport 
the  imagination  into  the  world  of  ideal  action  ? 
Perhaps  it  may  be  answered,  that  all  the  energies 
of  the  nation  are  concentrated  in  Paris,  where  lies 
its  brain,  and  that  Analysis  alone  can  penetrate 
to  the  principle  of  life  underlying  the  wild  ex- 
citement of  the  Parisian  Bourse,  the  gossip  of  the 
Parisian  journal,  the  intrigues  of  the  Parisian  draw- 
ing-room. But  Paris  is  not  France  :  the  poetry  of 
the  people,  its  historic  soul  and  character,  lies  else- 
where. Turn  away  from  the  dissolving  scene  of  life 
in  the  capital,  with  its  superficial  reflection  of  vulgar 
materialism,  to  the  bypaths  of  rural  France,  where 
Nature  pursues  her  ancient  round  in  the  midst  of  silent 
labour  and  elemental  pieties.  Pause  in  imagination, 
for  example,  in  the  valley  of  the  Loire,  as  that  noble 
river  flows  peacefully  amidst  historic  battle-grounds ; 
through  walled  towns,   where  every  stone   seems  to 


LECT.  Ill       THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  FRENCH  POETRY      251 

recall  some  national  memory — Orleans,  Tours,  Angers  ; 
through  fields  in  which,  here  and  there,  peasants 
may  still  be  seen,  as  Millet  saw  them,  listening  with 
bent  heads  to  the  voice  of  the  Angelus ;  under  gray 
chateaux,  which,  perhaps  no  longer  tenanted  by  the 
descendants  of  their  former  lords,  look  down,  at 
fixed  seasons,  on  popular  festivals  celebrated  around 
them  since  the  Middle  Ages — will  any  man  of  taste 
and  imagination,  viewing  scenes  like  these  in  the 
light  not  of  romance  but  of  history,  and  thinking  of 
all  the  movement  and  animation  of  the  present  in  its 
relation  to  the  past,  venture  to  say  that  Moliere  and 
La  Fontaine  would  have  found  nothing  worthy  of 
imitation  in  the  France  of  this  century  ?  Would  they 
not  have  been  able  to  show  us  in  an  ideal  form,  though 
it  were  but  in  comedy,  how  much  of  the  historic 
character  of  their  country  has  survived  the  conflict  of 
thirty  generations  ;  how  many  of  the  primaeval  springs 
of  national  life  combine  to  preserve  the  unity  of 
French  society  ;  to  what  extent  the  ancient  religion  is 
still  a  moving  power  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  ?  Let 
it  be  granted  that  it  is  no  longer  the  drama  or  the 
poem,  but  the  novel,  which  is  the  vehicle  of  imagina- 
tive expression.  Yet  the  novel  also  can  be  made  the 
mirror  of  the  ideal  imitation  of  Nature,  and  the  novelist 
who  is  able  to  give  a  reflection  of  the  true  morals  and 
manners  of  France  in  the  classic  language  inherited 
from  Pascal  and  Mme.  de  Sevigne,  will  command  an 
European  audience  as  wide  and  appreciative  as  in  the 
days  of  Louis  Quatorze. 


IV 

THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY 

The  same  inevitable  forces  out  of  which  arose  the 
character  of  French  Poetry  are  seen  to  be  work- 
ing, though  under  very  different  circumstances,  to 
determine  the  character  of  German  Poetry  ;  and  it  is 
this  law,  or  idea  of  law,  in  Germany  which  I  propose 
to  make  the  subject  of  my  present  lecture.  First  of 
all,  let  us  consider  precisely  the  nature  of  the  facts 
with  which  we  have  to  deal.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
Germany  has  expressed  the  idea  of  the  Universal, 
either  in  the  creative  departments  of  Poetry  or  in 
the  plastic  Arts,  with  as  much  character  as  Italy, 
England,  France,  or  even  Spain.  The  Germans  have 
produced  no  romantic  epic  of  universal  European 
fame,  like  the  Orlando  Furioso,  no  classic  epic  that 
can  be  named  with  Paradise  Lost ;  no  romance  like 
Do7i  Quixote;  no  tragic  drama  comparable,  I  do 
not  say  with  the  tragedies  of  Shakespeare,  but  even 
with  those  of  Corneille  and  Racine ;  no  comic  drama 
approaching  within  visible  distance  of  that  of  Moli^re. 
In  painting,  two  German  names  alone  are  household 
words,  Holbein  and  Albert  Diirer.     To  compensate  for 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        253 

these  deficiencies,  the  Germans  are  supreme  in  Music  : 
Handel,  Mozart,  and  Beethoven  form  a  triumvirate 
whom  the  united  musicians  of  the  rest  of  Europe  would 
challenge  in  vain.  From  Germany  have  come  the  great 
men  of  contemplation  in  Religion,  Philosophy,  and 
Criticism — Luther,  Kant,  Lessing.  And  in  lyric  poetry 
— that  department  of  the  art  which  is  most  akin  to 
Music — their  compositions  (I  am  thinking  of  the  ballads 
of  Schiller  and  Uhland,  of  Faust,  and  of  Heine's  Songs) 
have  roused  emotions  in  the  hearts  of  men  untouched 
by  the  lyric  poetry  of  any  other  nation,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  the  poetry  of  Byron. 

I  think  that  these  facts  are  precisely  the  results 
that  might  be  expected  to  follow  from  the  genius  of 
the  German  character,  and  the  course  of  German  his- 
tory. German  genius,  at  least  as  manifested  out- 
wardly up  to  quite  modern  times,  has  been  rather 
contemplative  than  practical.  The  German  has — or 
had  two  generations  ago — the  same  strange  contrasts 
in  his  character  as  are  noted  by  Tacitus  :  the  love  of 
arms,  joined  with  the  tendency  to  domestic  indolence  ; 
the  passion  for  intellectual  liberty,  accompanying  the 
neglect  of  the  arts  of  society  ;  energy  in  war,  followed 
by  reverie  in  peace.  In  peace,  says  the  practical 
Roman  historian,  *'  ipsi  hebent,  mira  naturae  diver- 
sitate,  cum  idem  sic  ament  inertiam  et  oderint 
quietem."  Something  of  this  contradictory  combina- 
tion of  qualities  is  visible  in  the  characters  of  many 
of  the  greatest  Germans ;  they  are  content  that  their 
bodies  shall  never  travel  out  of  sight  of  their  own 
hearth-smoke,   if  their  souls   have   freedom  to  soar 


254  LAW  IN  TASTE 


through  the  Infinite.  Luther,  shaking  the  world  from 
his  monastery,  with  his  doctrine  of  Justification  by 
Faith ;  Kant,  revolutionising  philosophy  in  his  little 
provincial  town,  beyond  w^hose  walls  he  rarely  stirred  ; 
both  were  true  Germans.  And  hence  it  seems  to  me 
quite  natural  that,  when  the  Germans  strive  to  express 
their  idea  of  the  Universal  in  the  sphere  of  creative 
imagination,  they  should  turn  with  the  readiest 
sympathy  to  that  one  of  the  Fine  Arts  which  at  once 
exerts  the  widest  sway  over  the  pure  emotions,  and  is 
least  under  the  direction  of  Reason,  least  subject  to 
the  limitations  of  plastic  form  ;  in  other  words,  the 
German  genius  has  closer  affinities  with  the  Art  of 
Music  than  with  the  Arts  of  Poetry  and  Painting. 

If,  however,  we  look  at  the  creative  departments 
of  Poetry,  as  actually  developed  in  Germany,  we  shall 
see  how  faithfully  the  practice  of  the  poets  reflects 
the  ideas  of  action  proper  to  the  history  of  the  Ger- 
man people.  The  political  history  of  Germany  is  the 
exact  antithesis  of  the  history  of  France,  for  while 
the  prominent  feature  of  French  history  is  an  exces- 
sive centralisation  leading  to  Absolutism,  the  char- 
acter of  German  history  is  an  excess  of  Individualism 
resulting  in  Anarchy.  Until  recently  the  Germans 
had  no  political  ideal  of  united  action  which  could 
be  reduced  to  practice.  At  a  time  when  Spain, 
France,  and  England  were  all  nations  with  clearly 
defined  interests  and  policies,  Germany  was  a  loose 
aggregation  of  States,  in  which  the  old  feudal,  semi- 
tribal  order  was  still  predominant ;  the  Emperor 
being  its  impotent  head,  and  against  that  head  all  the 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        255 


other  members,  each  in  conflict  with  the  other,  being 
in  rebellion — the  Princes  at  war  with  their  Sovereign, 
the  Cities  and  Knights  with  the  Princes,  the  Peasantry 
with  the  Knights  and  the  Cities.  From  the  midst 
of  this  caldron  of  chaos  rose  the  Reformation,  and 
from  the  Reformation  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  with  its 
political  and  spiritual  divisions  of  Catholic  against 
Protestant,  and  its  fruits  of  desolation,  poverty, 
despair.  When  the  wars  were  over,  each  petty 
exhausted  state  settled  down  within  its  own  limits, 
and  began  to  cultivate  civil  arts  in  its  own  way, 
having  cut  itself  ofi"  from  the  mediaeval  ideals  of 
the  Christian  Republic,  without  having  been  able  to 
assimilate  the  ideals  of  the  modern  Nation. 

Such  was  the  state  of  politics  in  Germany  at  the 
time  when  the  foundations  of  modern  German  litera- 
ture were  laid.  The  most  characteristic  period  of 
German  Poetry  is  the  century  between  the  Seven 
Years'  War  and  the  French  Revolution  of  1848  ;  and 
during  that  period  the  most  common  complaint  of 
German  writers  of  genius  is  the  want  of  great 
central  ideas  of  action  to  form  a  basis  of  national  art. 
Goethe,  in  his  Dichtung  und  Wahrheit,  describes  the 
prevailing  condition  of  things  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century :  "  Because  in  peace  patriotism 
really  consists  only  in  this,  that  every  one  sweeps  his 
own  doorstep,  minds  his  own  business,  learns  his 
own  lesson,  that  it  may  go  well  with  his  house,  so 
did  the  feeling  for  Fatherland  excited  by  Klopstock 
find  no  object  on  which  it  could  exercise  itself." 
Germany    was    full    of   men    of   imagination ;    they 


!56  LAW  IN  TASTE 


were  all  anxious  to  write  great  epics  and  great 
dramas  ;  unfortunately  they  had  to  make  their  poetical 
bricks  without  straw,  having  neither  characteristic 
ideas  of  political  unity,  nor  any  continuous  tradition 
of  rude  art  out  of  which  they  might  consciously 
develop  more  perfect  forms.  Hence  each  poet  was 
forced  to  think  out  the  first  principles  of  composition 
for  himself ;  and  one  of  the  characteristics  of  German 
poetry  is,  that,  in  the  higher  walks  of  the  Art,  Criti- 
cism precedes  Creation, 

Now  if  we  apply  the  twofold  Law  of  Fine  Art  to 
Klopstock's  Messiah,  the  most  celebrated  epic  that 
Germany  has  produced,  we  shall  see  how  its  form 
was  afi'ected  by  the  imaginative  conditions  I  have 
just  described.  The  matter  may  be  best  illustrated 
by  the  method  of  comparison,  and  Klopstock's  idea 
of  poetical  law  be  inferred  by  contrasting  the  mode 
of  composition  followed  in  the  Messiah  with  that  of 
Paradise  Lost.  Both  Milton  and  Klopstock  agree  in 
the  selection  of  a  subject  of  universal  interest;  in 
both  of  them  the  matter  which  is  the  foundation  of 
their  conception  is  derived  from  the  Bible,  But 
Milton  has  obtained  for  himself  perfect  freedom  of 
poetical  creation  by  laying  his  action  in  the  pre- 
historic period  described  in  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis,  whereby  he  is  enabled  to  treat  the  story  of 
the  Fall  in  the  epic  form  consecrated  by  the  usage  of 
such  great  poets  as  Homer  and  Virgil.  He  has  shown 
equal  judgment  in  limiting  the  action  of  Paradise 
Regained  to  the  single  episode  of  the  Temptation, 
which    he    can    treat    in    epic    style    without    any 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        257 

departure  from  Scripture  authority.  Klopstock,  on 
the  other  hand,  has  formed  no  central  conception  of 
the  action  which  he  proposes  to  relate.  He  begins 
his  epic  with  the  events  immediately  preceding  the 
Crucifixion,  but  he  transports  his  action,  as  he  pleases, 
from  the  sphere  of  the  real  to  the  supernatural,  em- 
bellishing it  with  episodes  of  angels  and  demons 
which  have  no  basis  in  the  Scripture  narrative. 
This  attempt  to  fuse  what  is  historical  with  what  is 
purely  poetical  betrays  a  fatal  want  of  judgment 
in  view  of  the  nature  of  the  subject,  and  would  never 
have  been  made  if  Klopstock,  before  beginning  to 
write,  had  realised  the  truth  of  what  Aristotle  says 
as  to  the  difference  between  Poetry  and  History. 

Observe  again  the  remarkable  contrast  in  the 
vehicles  of  language  which  Milton  and  Klopstock  re- 
spectively employ  for  the  expression  of  their  ideas. 
The  English  of  Milton  is  a  fusion  of  the  Saxon  and 
Latin  elements  in  our  tongue,  the  one  stream  bearing 
on  its  face  all  the  spiritual  character  derived  from  its 
Teutonic  source,  the  other  coloured  with  the  rich 
hues  of  traditional  Latin  civilisation  and  philosophy. 
The  language  of  Klopstock  is  that  pure  German 
which  he  himself  thus  describes:  "Let  no  living 
tongue  venture  to  enter  the  lists  with  the  German. 
As  it  was  in  the  oldest  times  when  Tacitus  describes 
it,  so  it  still  remains,  solitary,  unmixed,  incomparable." 
A  true  description,  however  boastful,  but  not  one  that 
recommends  the  German  language  as  the  vehicle  for 
a  subject  into  which  have  flowed  all  the  ideas  of  the 

late  Alexandrian  philosophy,  the  mediaival  science  of 

s 


258  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  Schoolmen,  the  civil  conceptions  of  Roman  Law, 
and  the  mystical  theology  of  the  Jewish  Talmud. 
A  similar  difference  is  visible  in  the  metrical  form 
of  the  two  poems.  The  blank  verse  of  Milton  is 
essentially  a  national  metre,  refined  with  the  highest 
art  from  the  usage  of  three  earlier  generations  of 
English  poets ;  the  metre  of  the  Messiah  is  an 
exotic  imitation  of  the  classic  hexameter,  invented 
by  Klopstock,  and  having  no  root  in  the  German 
language.  In  these  essential  respects,  therefore,  the 
Messiah  must  be  pronounced  to  want  the  national 
character  required  to  make  a  first-class  German  epic 
poem. 

Again,  let  us  apply  the  two-fold  law  of  Fine  Art 
to  the  German  drama.  What  is  meant  by  the  Uni- 
versal in  dramatic  poetry  is  a  situation  of  general 
interest,  such  as  we  find  in  Macbeth  or  the  CEJdipus 
Rex;  characters  animated  by  motives  common  to 
humanity ;  love,  jealousy,  revenge,  as  we  see  them 
exhibited  in  men  like  Othello  and  Orestes  ;  sentiments 
of  general  human  application,  "  To  be,  or  not  to  be," 
or  "The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strained,"  etc.  etc. 
In  order  that  the  dramatist  may  produce  these  uni- 
versal effects,  it  is  practically  necessary,  first,  that  the 
subject  or  idea  of  the  action  shall  be  common  both  to 
his  audience  and  to  himself,  and,  secondly,  that  the 
form  or  character  of  his  drama  shall  have  been  the 
product  of  long  stage  experience,  as  was  the  case 
both  in  Athens  under  Pericles  and  in  England  under 
Elizabeth.  Now  neither  of  these  conditions  was 
satisfied  when  Lessing  founded  the  modern  German 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        259 

drama  in  the  eighteenth  century ;  Germany  had  then 
neither  a  national  idea  of  action,  nor  a  national 
dramatic  tradition.  Lessing  himself  says  in  his 
Hamburgische  Dramaturgie :  "  Out  on  the  good- 
natured  idea  to  procure  for  the  Germans  a  national 
theatre,  when  we  Germans  are  not  yet  a  nation !  I 
do  not  speak  of  our  political  constitution  but  of  our 
social  character.  It  might  almost  be  said  that  this 
consists  in  not  desiring  to  have  an  individual  one. 
We  are  still  the  sworn  copyists  of  all  that  is  foreign ; 
especially  are  we  still  the  obedient  admirers  of  the 
never  enough  to  be  admired  French." 

In  spite  of  these  unfavourable  circumstances,  three 
men  of  eminent  genius — Lessing,  Schiller,  and  Goethe 
— determined  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  national 
theatre.  How  did  they  set  to  work  ?  Lessing,  as  he 
confesses,  formed  his  dramatic  conceptions  in  the 
spirit  not  of  a  poet  but  of  a  critic.  He  based  his  idea 
of  the  Universal  on  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  of  which 
he  says  :  "  I  do  not  hesitate  to  acknowledge  (even  if 
I  should  therefore  be  laughed  to  scorn  in  these  en- 
lightened times)  that  I  consider  this  work  as  infallible 
as  the  Elements  of  Euclid."  His  first  impulse  towards 
dramatic  creation  was  accordingly  to  prove  that  the 
French  dramatists  did  not  rightly  understand  Aris- 
totle's meaning  in  the  Poetics,  and  then  to  build  his  own 
theatrical  edifice  on  what  he  conceived  to  be  Aristotle's 
first  principles.  But  this  procedure  was  a  violation  of 
the  Law  of  Character  in  Fine  Art,  for,  as  I  have  said 
in  my  lecture  on  Aristotle,  the  rules  for  composition  in 
the  Poetics  were  generalised  only  from  Greek  examples, 


26o  LAW  IN  TASTE 


and  in  many  respects  were  not  applicable  to  the  circum- 
stances which  necessarily  determined  the  form  of  the 
modern  drama.  True,  Lessing  had  no  traditional  forms 
on  which  to  model  his  creations,  because  the  mediaeval 
drama  had  died  out  without  having  developed  any 
German  stage.  But  the  forms  which  he  himself 
evolved  cb  priori  from  his  critical  imagination  were 
devoid  of  national  life  and  character.  This  is  par- 
ticularly noticeable  in  what  is  perhaps  his  greatest 
dramatic  eflfort,  Emilia  Galotti.  His  aim  in  this 
tragedy  was  to  exhibit,  in  a  dramatic  form,  the  moral 
eflfects  of  corrupt  aristocratic  manners  such  as  then 
prevailed  in  the  Courts  of  the  German  princes.  He 
thought  that  he  might  effect  his  aim  by  allegorising 
the  story  of  Appius  and  Virginia,  for  he  hoped  that 
the  fame  of  that  legend  would  enlist  on  his  behalf  the 
sympathies  of  his  audience.  But  he  never  considered 
whether  the  action  of  a  father  stabbing  his  daughter 
to  preserve  her  chastity  was  characteristic  of  modern 
manners,  or  in  accordance  with  what  Aristotle  calls 
the  law  of  ideal  probability.  Though  Corneille  as 
a  critic  is  not  to  be  compared  with  Lessing,  he 
shows  himself  in  Horace  to  have  a  more  practical 
understanding  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  drama, 
for  he  takes  care  in  that  play  not  to  offend  against  the 
appearance  of  probability,  by  modernising  the  facts  of 
the  story,  while  at  the  same  time  he  flatters  the  pre- 
judices of  his  audience,  by  pretending'that  the  Romans 
felt  and  spoke  like  Frenchmen. 

Schiller's  dramas  have  far  more  life  than  Lessing's, 
because  he  wrote  as  a  poet,  not  primarily  as  a  critic, 


LECT.  IV    THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        261 

and  so  breathed  his  own  genius  and  ardour  into  his 
ideal  creations ;  but  he  had  as  little  conception  as 
Lessing  of  the  essential  law  of  the  stage.  Hear  what 
he  says  in  his  preface  to  the  Robbers :  "This  play  is 
to  be  regarded  merely  as  a  dramatic  narrative,  in 
which,  for  the  purpose  of  working  out  the  innermost 
operations  of  the  soul,  advantage  has  been  taken  of 
the  dramatic  method,  without  otherwise  conforming 
to  the  stringent  rules  of  theatrical  composition,  or 
seeking  the  dubious  advantage  of  stage  adaptation." 
In  other  words,  Schiller  wrote  for  the  reflective  reader, 
not  for  spectators  in  the  theatre  absorbed  by  the  ideal 
reality  of  action  ;  with  him  the  audience  is  left  out  of 
account.  And  what  is  true  of  his  Robbers  is  more  or 
less  true  of  all  his  plays ;  seek  for  the  element  of 
poetry  in  them,  and  you  will  find  it  to  be  rather 
lyrical  than  dramatic ;  the  best  passages  in  Don 
Carlos,  Wallenstein,  and  even  William  Tell,  are 
those  in  which  he  pours  out  his  own  emotions,  not 
those  in  which  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  carry  the 
audience  out  of  themselves  into  the  action  and  passion 
of  the  imaginary  situation. 

As  for  the  plays  of  Goethe,  with  the  exception  of 
Faust,  of  which  I  shall  speak  presently,  they  breathe 
the  spirit  of  sculpture,  the  most  remote  of  all  the  arts 
from  the  genius  of  action.  Heine  describes  them  with 
cruel  justice ;  he  likens  them  to  the  statues  of  the  gods 
in  the  Louvre,  "  with  their  white  expressionless  eyes,  a 
mysterious  melancholy  in  their  stony  smiles."  "  How 
strange,"  he  continues,  "  that  these  antique  statues 
should  remind  me  of  the  Goethian  creations,  which  are 


262  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 

likewise  so  perfect,  so  beautiful,  so  motionless  !  aud 
which  also  seem  oppressed  with  a  dumb  grieving  that 
their  rigidity  and  coldness  separate  them  from  our 
present  warm,  restless  life,  that  they  cannot  speak  and 
rejoice  with  us,  and  that  they  are  not  human  beings, 
but  unhappy  mixtures  of  divinity  and  stone."  No 
more  in  the  drama  than  in  the  epic  did  the  Germans 
find  that  ideal  matter  and  form  which  needed  to 
blend  congenially  with  their  imaginations  before  it 
could  assume  the  character  of  Fine  Art. 

How  different  is  the  case  with  German  lyric 
poetry!  The  German  song -writers  began  to  be 
celebrated  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  just  at  the  period  when  the  mind  of  Europe 
was  agitated  with  the  apprehended  approach  of  a 
great  change  in  the  structure  of  society,  the  more 
mysteriously  alarming  that  its  nature  could  not  be 
divined.  All  felt  it,  but  most  of  all  the  Germans. 
Cut  off  from  the  outlets  of  expression  in  political  life, 
the  ardent  minds  of  Germany  sought  with  the  more 
vehemence  to  give  utterance  to  this  universal  feeling 
in  the  sphere  of  imagination  and  emotion.  In  the 
German  language  they  had  an  instrument  admirably 
adapted  to  their  purpose.  As  Klopstock  said  of  it, 
it  had  remained  since  the  days  of  Tacitus  "  solitary, 
unmixed,  incomparable."  With  its  ancient  inflections, 
its  homely  words,  its  abstract  terms,  its  extraordinary 
powers  of  compounding  itself,  this  venerable  parent 
language  was  capable  of  touching  primitive  chords  of 
emotion  in  all  who  possessed  a  strain  of  Teutonic 
blood — that  is  to  say,  in  every  nation  north  of  the 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        263 

Alps.  But  it  was  not  possible  to  strike  out  at  one 
heat  the  essential  character  of  national  art,  and 
German  philosophers,  as  well  as  German  poets,  made 
many  experiments  before  they  hit  upon  the  true  form. 
The  failure  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  to  produce  any 
working  ideal  of  life  and  action  had  left  the  German 
mind  in  a  position  of  contemplative  isolation,  and 
with  a  strong  tendency  to  regard  all  human  affairs 
from  a  cosmopolitan  point  of  view.  Such  an  abstract 
mode  of  conception  was  foreign  to  the  genius  of 
Fine  Art,  which  deals  either  with  concrete  images  or 
positive  emotions,  and  will  not  come  to  the  artist  at 
the  bidding  of  analytical  philosophy. 

Hence  the  critical  advice  of  Herder,  a  truly 
representative  German,  to  his  young  countrymen  in 
the  eighteenth  century  was  barren  and  futile.  Herder 
said  :  "  National  literature  is  of  little  importance ; 
the  age  of  world  literature  is  at  hand,  and  every  one 
ought  to  work  in  order  to  accelerate  the  coming  of 
the  new  era.  What  we  want  is  a  poetry  in  harmony 
with  the  voices  of  the  peoples  and  with  the  whole 
heart  of  mankind.  Our  studies  must  be  cosmo- 
politan, and  must  include  the  popular  poetry  of  the 
Hebrews,  the  Arabs,  the  Franks,  Germans,  Italians, 
Spaniards,  and  even  the  songs  and  ballads  of  half- 
savage  races."  That  is  the  opinion  of  a  man  who 
understands  the  necessity  of  expressing  the  Universal 
in  poetry,  but  wlio  has  not  the  least  conception  of  the 
meaning  of  the  characteristic.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  nothing  in  the  shape  of  Poetry  ever  came  in 
Germany,    or    could    come    anywhere,    out    of   such 


264  LAW  IN  TASTE 


a  horrible  witches'  cauldron  as  Herder  proposed   to 
mix. 

Not  less  contrary  to  the  true  law  of  character  in 
art  was  the  attempt  made  by  the  patriotic  party  in 
Germany  to  express  in  the  lyric  poetry  of  their  native 
language  ideas  of  a  civil  or  political  order.  If  ideas 
of  this  kind  be  embodied  in  lyric  verse,  the  style 
adopted  must  be  lofty  and  severe,  but  of  what  was 
needed  for  such  a  style  the  Germans,  with  their  want 
of  political  training,  had  no  conception.  How  far  they 
were  from  attaining  it  may  be  imagined  from  a  com- 
parison of  Gray's  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard 
with  Frederick  Schubart's  once  famous  poem.  Die 
Fiirstengruft,  or  The  Vault  of  the  Princes.  Both  poets 
have  here  selected  a  subject  of  universal  interest,  and 
both  seek  to  draw  out  its  essential  character  by  a  series 
of  contrasted  images.  Gray  hits  the  mark.  How 
solemn  and  heroic  is  the  march  of  the  verse  in  which  he 
represents  the  compensations  in  the  respective  lots  of 
prince  and  peasant  that  make  them  equal  in  the  grave  ! 

Th'  applause  of  listening  senates  to  command. 
The  threats  of  pain  and  ruin  to  despise, 
To  scatter  plenty  o'er  a  smiling  land. 
And  read  their  history  in  a  nation's  eyes. 

Their  lot  forbade  :  nor  circumscribed  alone 
Their  growing  virtues,  but  their  crimes  confined, 
Forbade  to  wade  through  slaughter  to  a  throne. 
And  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  mankind ; 

The  struggling  pangs  of  conscious  truth  to  hide, 
To  quench  the  blushes  of  ingenuous  shame. 
Or  heap  the  shrines  of  luxury  and  pride 
With  incense  kindled  at  the  Muse's  flame. 


LECT.  IV    THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        265 

Schubart's  poem,  on  tte  contrary,  is  a  rhetorical 
invective  against  the  princes  of  Germany,  whom 
he  reproaches  as  the  tyrants  of  their  race.  It 
proceeds  to  its  climax  by  a  succession  of  contrasts, 
glaring,  violent,  theatrical,  though  not  wanting  in 
force  and  power,  describing  the  coffins  of  the  princes 
rotting  in  the  glimmering  light  of  the  vault,  with 
silver  shields  hanging  over  them,  and  grinning 
skulls,  emblems  of  vanity.  There  is  no  flesh  now — 
so  the  poet  reflects — on  the  hands  which  once,  by  a 
stroke  of  the  pen,  consigned  good  and  wise  men  to 
prison ;  the  stars  and  orders  shine  like  comets  on  the 
breasts  of  skeletons.  The  ear  can  hear  no  more  the 
voice  of  flattery  or  lascivious  music,  or  the  cry  of 
hounds  and  horses,  with  which  they  sought  to  still 
the  voice  of  conscience.  Let  the  hoarse  croak  of  the 
raven  be  far  from  the  vault,  and  every  rural  sound, 
as  well  as  the  voice  of  mourning,  lest  they  should 
awake  those  who  in  their  day  were  deaf  to  the 
prayers  of  the  peasant  whose  fields  they  ravaged, 
and  to  the  sobs  of  children  and  the  sighs  of  soldiers, 
made  orphans  and  cripples  in  their  wars. 

In  a  poem  like  this  we  feel  the  characteristic 
imagination  of  the  German  people  endeavouring  in 
an  uncongenial  subject — for  the  presence  of  death 
demands  solemnity  and  humbleness — to  express  its 
sense  of  the  infinite,  the  terrible,  the  grotesque,  the 
spectral,  without  ever  arriving  at  the  desired  eflect. 
A  nearer  approach  to  perfection  is  made  by  Biirger, 
whose  imitations  of  the  old  ballad  style  woke  an 
answering  chord  in  the  imagination  of  Walter  Scott, 


266  LAW  IN  TASTE 


and  helped  to  hasten  the  romantic  revival  in  England. 
In  his  Leonora,  Biirger  expressed  the  wild  unrest  of 
the  European  imagination  during  the  revolutionary 
epoch  in  a  highly  characteristic  manner,  by  associating 
it  with  the  images  of  demons  and  spectres  still  sur- 
viving among  the  people  of  Germany. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  Goethe  produced  Faust 
that  the  German  lyric  poets  discovered  the  form  of 
art  qualified  to  give  expression  to  the  universal 
revolutionary  emotion.  In  Faust  everything  is 
as  it  should  be  in  art.  The  varied  characters  of 
Faust  himself,  Mephistopheles,  and  Gretchen,  to- 
gether form  the  full  complement  of  spiritual  human 
feeling  which  manifested  itself  in  an  outward  form 
during  the  epoch  of  the  French  Revolution ;  the 
picturesque  scenes  of  local  life  which  are  scattered 
through  the  drama  —  Auerbach's  wine-cellar,  the 
Brocken,  the  town  fountain,  the  cathedral  —  are 
all  necessary  to  the  general  eflPect ;  the  little  touches 
of  sentiment — Gretchen's  song  of  the  King  of  Thule, 
the  flower  divination,  the  peasants'  holiday  enjoy- 
ment— if  one  of  these  had  been  away,  the  poem  would 
have  lacked  something  of  its  complete  perfection. 

And  yet  the  form  of  Faust  is  not  essentially 
dramatic  but  lyrical ;  it  could  never  be  satisfactorily 
acted  on  the  stage  like  a  play  of  Shakespeare ;  in  its 
theatrical  aspect  it  is  only  suitable  for  opera.  Why 
then  has  it  achieved  its  undisputed  place  as  one  of 
the  great  representative  poems  of  the  world  ?  The 
answer  is  because,  while  its  form  is  exactly  suited  to 
the  universal  nature  of  the  subject,  the  character  of 


LECT.  IV    THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        267 

that  form  is  specifically  German.  Faust  is  German 
in  its  subject.  The  legend  of  Faustus  grew  up  in 
Germany  itself  during  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
had  therefore  for  generations  been  in  the  minds  of 
the  people.  Goethe  assimilated  it,  brooded  over  it 
during  his  youth,  and  poured  into  this  mould  all  his 
own  individual  characteristics,  as  well  as  the  national 
characteristics  of  his  race.  Again  Faust  is  German 
in  its  dramatic  form.  Faust  himself,  with  his  vast 
intellectual  energy  and  his  sense  of  ennui,  represents 
the  philosophic  mind  of  Europe  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  but,  above  all,  the  mind  of  Germany,  de- 
prived of  the  opportunities  of  action,  and  recalling  the 
description  of  Tacitus  :  "  Ipsi  hebent :  idem  homines 
inertiam  amant,  quietem  oderunt."  Mephistopheles 
is  but  the  reflection  of  the  ironic,  scoffing  spirit 
which  is  the  natural  product  of  such  a  soil  in  the 
cultivated  portion  of  society ;  Gretchen,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  her  simple  domestic  instincts  and 
her  trusting  piety,  typifies  the  unsophisticated 
elements  in  the  German  people.  Finally,  Faust  is 
German  in  its  style :  there  is  in  it  none  of  that 
uneasy  artificial  sense  of  experiment  which  we  find  in 
earlier  German  poets  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  the 
versification  is  easy  and  flowing,  suited  alike  to  the 
nature  of  the  subject  and  to  the  genius  of  the  language. 
It  is  precisely  these  qualities  that  give  colour  and 
character  to  the  songs  of  Ileinrich  Heine,  Goethe's 
lineal  successor  in  German  poetry.  I  believe  that  it 
was  Thiers  who  described  Heine  as  the  wittiest 
Frenchman  since  Voltaire,  one  of  those  epigrams  in 


268  LAW  IN  TASTE 


which  the  superficial  cleverness  is  a  symptom  of 
internal  falsehood.  Heine  no  doubt  imitated  Voltaire 
in  the  raillery  with  which  he  assailed  established 
beliefs  and  institutions ;  but  his  raillery  is  quite 
devoid  of  the  logical  analysis  which  characterises  the 
work  of  the  author  of  Candide.  It  would  be  equally 
true  to  say  that  Heine  was  the  wittiest  Englishman 
since  Byron,  whom  he  also  imitates  in  his  combina- 
tion of  the  cynical  with  the  pathetic ;  but  Heine's 
irony  is  not  less  remote  from  Byron's  aristocratic 
scorn  than  from  Voltaire's  philosophic  mockery. 

Heine  was  a  representative  German,  though  no 
doubt  the  hatred  of  the  Jew  for  the  country,  with  all 
its  institutions  and  rulers,  that  oppressed  the  Jewish 
race,  was  also  strongly  developed  in  his  character. 
In  one  of  his  most  characteristic  songs  he  imagines  a 
girl  in  a  foreign  land  struck  with  compassion  for 
him  and  inquiring  who  he  is.     He  answers  : 

I  am  a  German  poet, 

In  the  German  land  well  known ; 
When  men  count  the  best  names  in  it, 

They  will  count  with  these  my  own. 

And  what  I  feel,  little  maiden, 

Men  feel  in  the  German  land ; 
When  they  reckon  its  fiercest  sorrows, 

My  sorrows  with  those  will  stand. 

What  were  the  German  sorrows  ?  Heine  unites  in 
himself  the  characters  of  Faust,  Mephistopheles,  and 
Gretchen,  despair,  scoffing,  tenderness ;  and  he  ex- 
presses the  agony  caused  by  this  conflict  of  emotions 
under  the  image  of  the  lover  who  has  lost  his  love. 


LECT.iv    THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        269 

The  image  he  employs  is  both  universal  and  nation- 
ally characteristic ;  universal  in  its  ordinary  applica- 
tion, as  well  as  in  giving  utterance  to  the  yearning 
of  the  human  heart  for  the  infinite — 

The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star, 

Of  the  night  for  the  morrow, 
The  devotion  to  something  afar 

From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow — 

characteristic  in  its  expression  of  the  sense  of  vanity 
in  the  German  mind,  caused  by  the  contrast  between 
their  own  energy  in  metaphysical  speculation  and 
their  impotence  in  political  action.  But  of  the  essen- 
tial elements  in  his  poetry  I  venture  to  say  that  the 
least  congenial  to  his  imagination  was  the  scofiing 
wit  of  Mephistopheles,  and  that  the  chief  ingredient 
in  his  art  was  the  domestic  tenderness  of  Gretchen. 

We  may  see  this  from  the  prevailing  features  in 
Heine's  lyrical  style.  Matthew  Arnold  and  other 
critics  have  spoken  with  just  appreciation  of  the  per- 
fection of  Heine's  lyrical  form,  but  it  is  worth  while 
to  note  more  precisely  the  essential  character  of  that 
form.  Its  character  lies,  I  think,  in  the  use  of 
images,  which  are  at  once  perfect  in  expression,  and 
which  yet  suggest  something  beyond  what  is  ex- 
pressed, of  metrical  words  which  set  in  motion  an 
infinite  train  of  thoughts  and  emotions.  Let  me 
attempt  by  a  single  example,  which  will  speak  for 
itself,  to  show  you  what  I  mean.  Here  is  a  very 
inadequate  rendering  in  English  of  a  little  poem 
complete  in  three  stanzas  about  the  three  Kings  of 
Cologne : 


270  LAW  IN  TASTE 


The  three  holy  Kings  from  the  Eastland  came  ; 

Each  asks  wherever  he  passes, 
"  Which  way  is  the  way  to  Bethlehem, 

My  lovely  lads  and  lasses  1 " 

The  young  and  the  old,  they  could  not  say ; 

The  Kings  fared  onward  featly, 
And  followed  a  golden  star  alway. 

That  shone  full  high  and  sweetly. 

The  star  over  Joseph's  house  abode ; 

They  passed  'neath  the  roof -tree  lowly ; 
The  Baby  cried,  the  Oxen  lowed ; 

Then  sang  those  three  Kings  holy. 

Imagine  Voltaire,  or  indeed  any  one  but  a  German, 
writing  anything  like  that.  It  strikes  exactly  the 
same  note  as  Goethe's  "  There  was  a  King  of 
Thule  "  in  Faust.  And  this  note  was  possible  to  the 
German  poet,  and  to  no  other,  because  the  German 
people  were  nearer  than  any  other  nation  to  the 
Middle  Ages,  because,  with  their  Christianity,  they 
had  retained  in  their  imagination  something  of  their 
old  primeval  beliefs  about  Nature,  and  because  their 
pure  unmixed  language  was  qualified  to  give  ex- 
pression to  this  ancient  unconscious  association  of 
ideas.  To  a  certain  extent  their  poetic  faculty  was 
shared  by  other  branches  of  the  Teutonic  and  Celtic 
races,  and  Wordsworth  notices  the  mysterious  effect 
in  his  stanza  describing  the  unconscious  song  of  the 
Highland  Maiden  : 

Will  no  one  tell  me  what  she  sings  1 
Perhaps  the  mournful  numbers  flow 

For  old  forgotten,  far-oflF  things, 
And  battles  long  ago. 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY         271 

But  as  the  folk-lore  of  Germany  is  far  richer  and 
wilder  than  that  of  England,  in  proportion  as  it  has 
kept  clearer  of  the  stream  of  Hellenic  civilisation,  so 
is  it  better  adapted,  by  the  simple  domesticity  of  its 
imagery,  to  touch  what  may  be  called  the  universal 
Gothic  heart  of  modern  Europe. 

It  is  in  this  spiritual  elfin  region  that  Goethe  and 
Heine  find  the  largest  freedom  for  their  imagination. 
In  their  verse  we  listen  to  mysterious  voices  from  the 
pine-trees  rustling  outside  the  windows  of  the  lonely 
cottage  in  the  mountains,  or  to  strange  primeval 
colloquies  between  plants  and  animals ;  the  white 
gleam  of  the  Siren's  body  is  perceived  in  the  whirl- 
pool ;  small  armies  of  dwarfs  and  kobolds  creep 
out  of  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  Not  in  the  bitter 
Mephistophelian  cynicism  with  which  Heine  often 
thinks  it  fine,  in  Byronic  fashion,  to  close  his  pathetic 
lyrics,  not  there  do  we  feel  the  genuine  heart  of  the 
poet,  but  in  those  self- forgetful  reveries,  tender 
and  mysterious  as  the  folk  -  songs  of  Marguerite, 
in  which  he  talks  in  their  own  language  to  the 
peasants  of  the  Harz  mountains.  Witness  that 
unequalled  cottage  scene,  where  the  little  maiden 
whispers  her  beliefs  with  pleasing  trepidation  to  her 
lover  by  the  sinking  fire  : 

Little  folk  and  tiny  people 
Bread  and  bacon  leave  us  none ; 
Late  at  night  'tis  in  the  cupboard, 
In  the  morning  it  is  gone. 

Little  people  to  the  cream-bowl 
Come  by  night  and  take  the  best ; 


272  LAW  IN  TASTE 


And  they  leave  the  bowl  uncovered, 
And  the  cat  laps  up  the  rest. 

And  the  cat's  an  old  witch-woman 
Who,  at  midnight's  stormiest  hour, 
Often  in  the  haunted  mountains 
Crawls  on  the  old  ruined  tower. 

There  in  old  time  stood  a  castle. 
Feasts  were  held  and  arms  would  glance 
Knights,  and  squires,  and  noble  ladies 
Used  to  thread  the  torchlight  dance. 

But  it  chanced  a  wicked  sorceress 
Cast  her  spell  on  tower  and  guest ; 
Now  there's  nothing  left  but  ruins. 
Where  the  owlets  build  their  nest. 

Aunt,  who's  now  in  heaven,  told  me 
That  the  proper  word  of  doom, 
At  the  proper  hour  of  midnight. 
Spoken  in  the  proper  room. 

It  will  turn  those  ancient  ruins 
Into  castle  halls  once  more ; 
Knights,  and  squires,  and  noble  ladies 
Dance  as  gaily  as  of  yore. 

And  whoe'er  he  be  that  speaks  it, 
Tower  and  people  at  that  word. 
With  the  sound  of  drum  and  trumpet, 
Shall  proclaim  their  youthful  lord. 

Not  only  in  Goethe  and  Heine  do  you  hear  this 
note  of  genuine  lyric  inspiration.  It  is  of  the  essence 
of  the  poems  of  Uhland  and  many  another  less 
known  singer  who  has  taken  the  rough  diamonds 
of  suggestion  from  the  Volks-Lied  and  polished  them 
into  gems  of  art.     Let  me  venture  to  give  you  one 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        273. 

more  specimen  from  the  songs  of  Wilhelm  Miiller, 
father  of  our  eminent  Professor  of  Comparative  Philo- 
logy, which  will  show  you,  even  in  the  imperfect 
mirror  of  our  own  language,  with  what  exquisite  skill 
tlie  German  lyric  poets  link  universal  sentiments 
with  images  drawn  from  the  traditions  of  the  people. 
The  subject  of  the  poem  is  Vineta,  an  old  town  said 
by  German  legend  to  lie  buried  beneath  the  Baltic  : 

Often  on  the  evening  silence  stealing 
From  the  sea-depths,  fathoms,  fathoms  down, 
Bells  sound  faintly  wondrous  tidings  pealing 
Of  the  old-world,  ocean-buried,  town. 

There  it  stands  for  ever,  ruins  hoary, 
Undecaying  in  their  billowy  grave ; 
From  the  bulwarks  flakes  of  golden  glory 
Rise,  and  paint  the  mirror  of  the  wave. 

And  the  fisher  who,  at  red  of  even. 
Once  has  seen  that  vision  near  the  shore, 
Heedless  of  dark  cliff  and  frowning  heaven, 
Haunts  the  enchanted  spot  for  evermore. 

Often  from  the  heart's  deep  places  stealing 
Upward,  upward,  to  the  world  above, 
Come  to  me,  like  far  bells  faintly  pealing, 
Voices  of  the  days  of  vanished  love. 

Yes  !  a  faery  world  is  sunk  thereunder, 
From  whose  hoary  ruins  still,  meseems. 
Visions,  full  of  heaven's  own  light  and  wonder. 
Rise,  and  paint  the  mirror  of  my  dreams. 

And  whene'er  I  hear  those  faint  bells  ringing. 
Through  the  magic  waves  I  sink,  ah  me  ! 
Sink,  and  seem  to  hear  the  angels  singing, 
In  that  old-world  town  beneath  the  sea. 
T 


274  LAW  IN  TASTE 


I  cannot  impress  too  strongly  upon  those  who 
hear  me  that  a  knowledge  of  the  way  in  which  the 
law  of  Fine  Art  operates  will  not  enable  us  to  pro- 
duce works  of  Fine  Art.  That  can  be  accomplished 
by  Genius  alone.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Genius 
can  achieve  nothing  of  permanent  value  without 
obedience  to  Law ;  and  the  knowledge  of  the  opera- 
tion of  Law  is  of  service  to  Genius  because  it 
strengthens  the  judgment;  it  shows  the  artist  how 
he  must  obey  nature  in  order  to  command  it ;  it 
teaches  him  to  judge  himself;  to  recognise  the  limits 
within  which  he  can  enjoy  artistic  and  individual 
freedom ;  to  test  the  quality  of  his  own  art  by  com- 
paring it  with  what  is  permanent  in  the  characteristic 
art  of  his  country. 

Hence  all  that  I  have  attempted  to  do  in  this 
lecture  is  to  estimate  the  law  or  character  of  German 
Poetry  historically.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  presume 
to  assert  that  German  Poetry  in  the  future  will  in- 
evitably move  in  the  same  grooves  and  channels  as  in 
the  past.  Character  is  modified  by  circumstances  to 
an  almost  unlimited  extent,  and  during  the  present 
generation  the  history  of  Germany  has  undergone 
something  like  a  revolution.  The  idea  of  German 
Unity,  which  floated  with  incorporeal  ghostliness 
before  the  men  of  the  eighteenth  century,  has  in  our 
times  taken  a  positive  external  shape ;  the  German 
State,  the  German  Empire  exists ;  what  we  want  to 
know,  before  we  can  foresee  how  far  this  chanofc  in 
history  will  modify  the  character  of  German  art,  is 
just  what  no  foreigner  can  at  present  know,  namely, 


LECT.  IV     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        275 

whether  the  structure  of  German  Unity  has  been 
imposed  upon  the  nation,  by  the  genius  of  great 
rulers,  statesmen,  and  soldiers,  or  whether  it  is  the 
natural  product  of  the  mind  and  character  of  the 
people.  In  the  former  case  it  may  be  destroyed,  as  it 
has  been  created,  from  without ;  in  the  latter  the 
ideas  of  action  it  excites  will  be  reflected  in  the 
sphere  of  spiritual  imagination.  We  can  see  that,  in 
the  material  aspect  of  things,  Germany,  as  a  state,  has 
freed  herself  from  the  reproach  which,  from  the  days 
of  Tacitus,  has  clung  to  her,  of  being  wanting  in 
practical  aim.  It  can  no  longer  be  said  of  her  rulers  : 
"Ipsi  hebent :  inertiam  amant,  quietem  oderunt." 
The  full  powers  of  the  State  are  devoted  to  perfecting 
the  splendid  scientific  faculties  of  the  German  mind, 
so  as  to  make  it  irresistible  in  the  operations  of  war 
and  the  enterprise  of  commerce,  and  to  render  the 
influence  of  Germany  paramount  in  the  councils  of 
Europe. 

But  after  all,  the  question  as  regards  Fine  Art 
is.  What  eff'ect  has  this  great  historical  change  made 
in  the  elementary  German  character,  or  how  far 
has  that  character  caused  the  change,  because  the 
source  of  all  Poetry,  of  all  ideal  creation,  is  the  mind 
of  the  People  itself  ?  How  will  the  intense  passion  of 
the  German  mind  for  free  thought  and  speculation 
reconcile  itself  with  the  rule  of  the  military  Absolut- 
ism, which  seems  to  be  the  necessary  instrument  for 
realising  the  ambitions  of  the  new  German  State  ? 
And  again,  in  what  poetic  form  will  these  imperial 
ideals  express    themselves   without   destroying   that 


lit  "Ll^SN  IN  TASTE 


domestic  sensibility  and  that  spirit  of  romance  and 
reverie  which  have  been  in  the  past  the  parents  of 
German  song  and  German  music  ? 

It  is  certainly  a  striking  fact  that  the  establish- 
ment of  the  German  Empire  has  not  been  followed  by 
a  period  of  characteristic  creation  in  German  Fine  Art, 
at  least  in  the  arts  of  Painting  and  Poetry.  There 
have  been  characteristic  movements  of  art  in  other 
nations.  The  movement  of  the  Poetical  Preraphaelites 
of  England,  and  that  of  the  Poetical  Symbolists  in 
France,  may  not  fulfil  the  requirements  of  the 
Universal,  but  certainly  neither  of  them  is  wanting 
in  distinct  character.  Nor  is  characteristic  move- 
ment wanting  -in  that  one  of  the  Fine  Arts  in 
which  the  Germans  specially  excel,  for  a  German 
of  remarkable  genius  has,  within  our  own  genera- 
tion, endeavoured  to  extend  the  functions  of  Music, 
by  making  it  into  a  vehicle  for  the  expression  of 
intellectual  ideas.  Of  the  wisdom  of  his  aims  I  do 
not  venture  to  speak,  since  the  question,  whether  this 
particular  art  is  justified  in  appropriating  the  prin- 
ciples of  another,  is  one  that  belongs  to  the  Chair  of 
Music  rather  than  to  that  of  Poetry.  But  of  what  is 
passing  in  the  poetical  imagination  of  the  German 
people,  as  distinct  from  the  mind  of  the  German  State, 
we  know  nothing — for  in  poetry  the  German  soul  is  at 
present  silent. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  it  should  be  so.  To 
find  out  the  form  of  Poetry  fitted  to  reflect  the 
conflict  of  ideas  between  Feudalism  and  Socialism, 
Catholicism  and  Rationalism,  as  well  as  the  forces 


LECT.  IV    THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  GERMAN  POETRY        277 

that  attract  the  centrifugal  units  of  German  nation- 
ality to  the  Imperial  Crown,  is  a  task  that  requires 
meditation  both  long  and  deep.  Yet  the  problem 
will  doubtless  be  faced.  And  when  the  Muse  of 
Germany  speaks  again  through  the  genius  of  a  great 
poet,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  her  utterances  will 
not  simply  take  the  old  lyrical  form,  but  that  she  will 
also  employ  those  forms  of  drama  or  romance  which 
are  needed  to  express  universal  ideas  of  life  and 
action.  In  the  sphere  of  Poetry,  as  in  that  of 
Politics,  the  Germans  will  perhaps  awake  the  sleeping 
Barbarossa. 


THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

As  illustrating  the  subject  of  my  present  lecture,  I 
find  a  passage  in  Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism  which  is 
well  deserving  of  examination.     It  is  this  : 

But  soon  by  impious  arms  from  Latium  chased 
The  banished  Muse  her  ancient  boundaries  passed. 
Through  all  the  northern  world  the  arts  advance, 
But  critic  learning  flourished  most  in  France. 
The  rules  a  nation  born  to  serve  obeys, 
And  Boileau  still  in  right  of  Horace  sways. 
But  we  brave  Britons  foreign  laws  despised, 
And  lived  unconquered  and  uncivilised  : 
Fierce  for  the  liberties  of  art,  and  bold. 
We  still  defied  the  Romans  as  of  old. 

In  these  lines  the  poet  is  describing  the  progress 
from  Italy  to  the  north  of  Europe  of  the  great 
movement  known  as  the  Classical  Renaissance.  Con- 
sidering that  the  description  is  in  verse,  the  history 
in  the  first  six  lines  is  surprisingly  accurate.  It  is, 
of  course,  not  true  that  the  storming  of  Rome  by 
the  Constable  Bourbon,  the  feat  of  "  impious  arms  " 
to   which    Pope   is  alluding,  was  the  cause    of    the 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         279 

spread  of  the  movement  northwards ;  but  it  is  an 
undoubted  fact  that  soon  after  that  event  the  effects 
of  the  Eenaissance  begin  to  show  themselves  in  the 
poetry  of  the  courts,  both  of  Francis  I.  and  of 
Henry  VIII.  Though  the  sun  of  Italian  poetry  was 
then  far  declined,  the  "critic  learning"  grounded  on 
the  supposed  authority  of  Aristotle,  and  fostered  in  the 
Academies  of  Italy,  was  very  influential  in  preparing 
the  way  for  the  later  Academic  criticism  of  France. 
Pope  is  fully  justified  in  saying  that  the  doctrines, 
ascribed  by  this  tradition  of  culture  to  Aristotle, 
"  flourished  most  in  France  "  ;  and  he  is  also  right  in 
explaining  the  fact  by  the  tendency  in  the  French 
character  to  submit  to  absolute  authority.  It  is  no 
wonder  that,  taking  the  tradition  at  second  hand 
from  the  French  critics,  who  themselves  echoed 
the  opinions  of  Scaliger  and  Castelvetro,  imagining 
too  that  the  science  of  the  Greeks  had  been  trans- 
mitted through  Horace's  Ars  Poetica  to  the  poetical 
treatises  of  Vida  and  Boileau,  he  should  have 
believed  that  the  "  rules "  he  looked  upon  as  the 
source  of  true  culture  were  derived  straight  from  the 
imperial  head  of  ancient  philosophy. 

When,  however,  he  comes  to  describe  the  attitude 
of  the  English  mind  towards  these  "  rules,"  his 
history  becomes  superficial  and  incorrect.  At  no 
time  was  it  true,  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  word,  that 
English  artists  "  despised  foreign  laws "  :  on  the 
contrary,  one  of  the  most  noticeable  features  in  the 
history,  alike  of  English  painting  and  of  English 
poetry,  has  been  the  influence  exercised  on  the  course 


28o  LAW  IN  TASTE 


of  our  artistic  development  by  foreign  models.  Of 
the  careful  study  bestowed  from  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  by  our  painters  on  the  work  of  the 
Italian,  Dutch,  and  French  masters,  I  need  say 
nothing.  Confining  my  attention  to  the  history  of 
poetry  with  which  Pope  is  dealing,  it  will  be  sufl&- 
cient  to  disprove  his  assertion  by  reference,  in  the 
infancy  of  our  poetry,  to  the  work  of  Chaucer,  who 
not  only  translated  the  Roman  de  la  Rose,  but 
derived  much  of  his  philosophy  of  life  from  that 
poem ;  who  also  in  his  House  of  Fame  constantly 
kept  in  view  The  Divine  Comedy  of  Dante ;  and 
who  drew  the  scheme  of  The  Canterbury  Tales  from 
the  Decameron  of  Boccaccio.  After  Chaucer  we  pass 
on  to  the  practice  of  Wyatt,  Surrey,  and  their  followers 
imitated  from  Petrarch  ;  after  that,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  the  poetry  of  Milton,  so  profoundly  influenced 
by  the  Italian  writers,  both  in  Latin  and  vernacular 
verse,  and,  on  the  other,  to  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
who,  under  the  influence  of  the  style  and  structure 
of  the  Spanish  play,  altered  the  whole  tradition  of 
the  English  romantic  drama. 

Even  if  we  examine  Pope's  history  within  the 
limits  to  which  he  intended  to  confine  it,  it  cannot 
be  said  that  the  English,  as  a  nation,  ever  set  them- 
selves deliberately  to  oppose  the  authority  of  the 
supposed  Aristotelian  "  rules."  On  the  contrary,  the 
first  elaborate  treatise  of  criticism  in  the  English 
language.  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  Apologie  for  Poetry, 
is  confessedly  grounded  upon  them.  Half  a  century 
before  Corneille,  Sidney  had  advocated  with  ardour 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         281 

the  principle  of  the  Unities,  as  expounded  by  the 
critics  of  Italy ;  and  he  censured  Spenser  for  using 
dialect  in  his  Shepherd's  Calendar^  on  the  ground 
that  the  experiment  was  an  innovation  on  classical 
example.  Ben  Jonson,  in  the  next  generation,  con- 
stantly sneers  at  his  contemporaries  for  their  barbarous 
neglect  of  the  Unities.  Dryden,  though  he  never 
ventures  to  deviate  from  the  practice  of  the  English 
stage  into  the  paths  of  critical  orthodoxy,  always 
speaks  with  superstitious  reverence  of  the  authority 
of  French  critical  law.  And,  if  any  further  proof 
were  required  to  indicate  the  gathering  volume  of 
opinion  in  this  direction,  it  would  be  furnished  by 
the  drift  of  thought  in  Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism, 
and  by  Addison's  dramatic  criticisms  in  the  Spectator, 
which  vividly  reflect  the  movement  of  taste  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne. 

In  any  case,  supposing  it  had  been  true  that  the 
English  had  defied  the  critical  tradition  of  the 
Humanists,  passed  on  to  France  from  Italy,  this 
would  not  have  proved  them  to  be  uncivilised.  For, 
in  the  first  place,  the  laws  in  question  were  not 
the  laws  of  Aristotle.  The  rule  of  the  Unities  of 
Time  and  Place  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Poetics 
of  that  philosopher ;  the  only  Unity,  on  the  necessity 
of  which  Aristotle  insists  as  a  law  of  dramatic 
poetry,  is  Unity  of  Action.  The  first  mention  of 
the  law  of  Unity  of  Time  is  in  the  commentary  of 
Scaliger  on  the  Poetics,  published  in  1561,  where  the 
principle  is  deduced  by  mere  inference  from  casual 
expressions  of  Aristotle ;  the  law  of  Unity  of  Place  is 


282  LAW  IN  TASTE 


in  like  manner  inferred  quite  arbitrarily  and  for  the 
first  time  by  Castelvetro,  in  his  edition  of  the  Poetics, 
published  in  1571  ;  Aristotle  nowhere  lays  down  such 
a  rule  in  his  treatise,  nor  did  the  Greek  dramatists 
observe  it  in  practice.  Corneille  was  the  first  dramatist 
to  proclaim  his  submission  to  rules  dictated  to  him 
by  the  two  Italian  critics  ;  he  defended  his  practice  by 
reasoning,  but  he  only  succeeded  in  establishing  it, 
because  it  fell  in  with  the  taste  of  the  logical,  and 
rather  prosaic,  French  genius,  which  completely  mis- 
interpreted Aristotle's  use  of  the  term  Imitation. 

Once  more :  let  us  even  suppose  Aristotle  to 
have  been  the  author  of  "  the  rules,"  as  Pope 
imagined  ;  this  fact  would  not  have  obliged  English 
dramatists,  on  any  rational  theory  of  authority,  to  obey 
his  particular  edicts.  The  Law  of  the  Three  Unities 
could  at  most  have  been  classed  with  Aristotle's  by- 
laws, such  as  his  requirements  for  the  form  of  the 
perfect  tragedy,  or  for  the  character  of  the  ideal 
tragic  hero  ;  and  these,  as  I  have  before  urged,  being 
derived  from  his  observation  solely  of  the  practice 
of  the  Greek  stage,  have  no  application  whatever  to 
the  form  and  structure  of  the  drama  in  other  nations, 
which  is  based  on  conceptions  of  the  Universal  in 
Nature  in  many  respects  fundamentally  diff'erent 
from  the  ideas  of  the  Greeks. 

Had  Pope  been  better  acquainted  with  the  mean- 
ing of  Aristotle,  he  would  have  perceived  that,  pro- 
vided his  countrymen  conformed  to  the  philosopher's 
grand  principle  of  imitating  the  Universal  in  Nature, 
they  were    quite    right    to    imitate   it    according   to 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         283 

the  law  imposed  upon  them  by  their  national 
character  and  history.  So  long  as  they  obeyed  in  a 
philosophic  spirit  their  own  municipal  law  of  art, 
they  might  despise  foreign  laws  without  incurring 
the  reproach  of  insular  barbarism.  The  application 
of  the  French  "  rules"  to  a  play  like  Hamlet,  which 
caused  Voltaire  to  call  Shakespeare  a  drunken  savage, 
shows  an  ignorance  of  the  methods  of  art  actually 
employed  by  the  English  poet  which  recoils  on  the 
head  of  the  French  critic ;  and  though  Boileau 
pronounced  dictatorially  that  it  was  impossible  to 
write  an  epic  upon  a  Scripture  subject,  yet  the  logical 
impossibility  of  the  critic  was  overcome,  without  any 
violation  of  the  true  laws  of  Poetry,  in  Milton's 
Paradise  Lost.  To  attempt  to  confine  the  liberties 
of  the  poet  by  any  a  priori  system  of  critical 
legislation  is,  as  I  have  said  more  than  once,  worse 
than  useless.  Genius  must  be  left  to  find  out  the 
law  for  itself. 

Not  that  this  implies  that  there  is  no  law  beyond 
the  will  of  genius.  "  Fierce  "  as  the  English  poets 
were,  and  rightly  were,  for  the  liberties  of  wit,  the 
best  and  most  representative  of  them  knew  that 
these  liberties  must  be  confined  within  certain  limits 
and  directed  to  a  definite  end.  The  end  they  had  in 
view  was  the  imitation  of  the  Universal,  but  the 
aspect  of  the  Universal  that  manifests  itself  to  the 
English  artist  is  modified  and  coloured  by  a  character 
peculiar  to  his  own  society,  so  that  the  poetical  forms 
in  which  he  reflects  his  ideas  are  necessarily  different 
from  the  forms  in  use  among  the  artists  of  other 


284  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 

nations.  It  is  for  the  artist  to  decide  in  what  way 
he  can  turn  to  his  purpose  the  principles,  instincts, 
and  institutions,  which  go  to  make  up  national 
character  ;  how  far  he  may  successfully  extend  his 
individual  liberties  within  the  law  can  only  be 
determined  by  the  force  of  his  genius.  All  that  the 
critic  can  usefully  do  is  to  collect  the  law  of  art, 
by  observing  what  are  the  elements  common  to  the 
work  of  a  nation's  greatest  artists,  and  to  note  the 
working  of  the  law  of  national  character  in  art,  by 
comparing  the  manner  of  imitating  the  Universal 
prevailing  in  one  nation  with  that  prevailing  in 
another. 

It  was  for  this  reason  that,  before  attempting  to 
discover  what  is  the  predominant  idea  of  law  in 
English  Poetry,  I  examined  in  previous  lectures  how 
the  law  of  national  character  has  manifested  itself  in 
the  poetry  both  of  France  and  of  Germany.  For  it 
is  plain  that  in  their  elements,  the  French,  German, 
and  English  minds  have  much  in  common  with  each 
other ;  we  all  originally  spring  from  one  race  ;  we 
were  all  converted  from  heathenism  to  the  Christian 
religion  ;  we  all  inherited  the  institutions  of  Teutonic 
chivalry  ;  the  English  language  is  made  up  of  words 
mainly  derived  from  German  and  French  sources.  It 
may,  therefore,  be  concluded  that  Nature  has  put  us  all 
in  the  way  of  taking  the  same  view  of  the  Universal ; 
and  that  the  very  divergent  views  of  it,  which  are, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  disclosed  in  the  art  and  poetry 
of  the  three  nations,  are  due  to  peculiarities  in  the 
character  and  history  of  each  people. 


LECT.v     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         285 


Comparing  the  English  character  then  either  with 
the  French  or  the  German,  the  first  thing  that  strikes 
every  inquirer  is  the  great  multiplicity  of  elements 
which  the  English  exhibits,  in  contrast  with  the 
simplicity  of  the  other  two.  The  German  race  has 
remained  completely  unmixed,  and  many  features, 
noted  in  their  character  by  an  accurate  observer  like 
Tacitus,  have  survived  in  it  with  very  little  change. 
Again,  much  of  what  Csesar  says  of  the  character 
of  the  ancient  Gauls  is  obviously  applicable  to  the 
character  of  the  modern  Frenchman.  At  first  sight 
this  seems  somewhat  strange,  when  we  remember  that 
the  conquering  Franks  were  of  pure  Teutonic  descent ; 
but  when  we  see  how  completely,  in  the  French 
language,  the  German  element  has  been  merged  in 
the  Romance,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the 
genius  of  the  barbarous  victors  was  subdued  by 
the  civilisation  of  the  Romanised  Celt. 

No  ancient  historian  has  attempted  to  analyse 
the  character  of  the  English  nation.  It  is  made 
up  of  British,  Anglo  -  Saxon,  Scandinavian,  and 
Norman  elements,  each  of  which  has  been  fused  in  the 
organic  whole  without  entirely  losing  its  individual 
existence.  How  much  influence  the  British  element 
has  exercised  on  our  whole  character  may  be 
doubted  ;  if  we  are  to  judge  from  language,  very 
little,  for  the  number  of  Celtic  words  we  use  may 
be  easily  reckoned.  Nor  do  I  tliink  that  Matthew 
Arnold  is  anything  but  fanciful  when  he  ascribes 
certain  features  in  the  style  of  English  poetry  to 
the  Celtic   strain    in   our   blood,    though   of  course 


2S6  LAW  IN  TASTE 


I  should  be  the  last  to  deny  the  influence  of  the 
Celtic  genius  as  one  of  the  sources  of  mediaeval  English 
Romance.  The  love  of  constitutional  liberty,  which 
is  so  dominant  a  feature  in  the  English  character, 
may  fairly  be  ascribed  to  our  German  ancestry ; 
but  the  somewhat  sluggish  and  stationary  temper 
of  the  Saxons  must,  after  they  were  once  insularisedj 
have  sunk  into  torpor  and  decay,  if  it  had  not 
been  quickened  by  the  life  and  movement  of  the 
adventurous  Scandinavian  immigrants ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  directing  genius  of  the  Normans  runs  in 
unbroken  continuity  through  the  entire  history  of  the 
English  nation. 

If  we  turn  our  inquiry  from  race  to  language, 
we  find  the  same  principle  of  simplicity  in  the 
elements  prevailing  in  German  and  French  as 
compared  with  English.  I  quoted  in  my  last  lecture 
Klopstock's  description  of  the  purity  of  the  German 
language,  the  structure  of  which  he  boasts  to  have 
remained  unchanged  since  the  days  of  Arminius. 
French,  on  the  contrary,  exhibits  the  growth  of 
fresh  organic  forms  out  of  the  structural  decay  of 
Latin,  and  reflects  in  its  history  a  regular  process  of 
transformation  and  development.  English  derives  its 
vocabulary  both  from  French  and  German,  showing 
a  curious  drama  of  give  and  take  between  the  two 
opposing  elements.  Physically,  the  dominant  character 
of  the  German  in  our  language  is  indicated  by  the 
imposition  of  the  Saxon  mode  of  accentuation  on  im- 
migrant words.  Thus  the  words  Saturn,  beauty, 
fortune,  nature,  in  which  the  accent  is  now  thrown 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         287 

back,  according  to  the  Saxon  principle,  on  to  the  first 
syllable,  were  in  the  time  of  Chaucer  and  his  con- 
temporaries accentuated,  according  to  the  French 
principle,  on  what  would  have  been  the  penultimate 
syllable  of  the  Latin  word  Saturn,  heautee,  fortune, 
nature.  But,  by  way  of  compensation,  the  superior 
power  of  the  French,  in  all  matters  relating  to  art  and 
culture,  manifests  itself  in  the  disappearance  of  the 
Saxon  alliterative  verse  before  the  invasion  of  French 
metres  determined  by  accent  and  rhyme. 

Passing  from  the  elements  of  character  in  them- 
selves to  the  war  of  the  elements  in  action,  we  may 
observe,  in  the  sphere  of  politics,  how  very  differently 
each  of  the  three  nations  has  proceeded  in  its  attempt 
to  reconcile  the  conflicting  principles  of  which  its  life 
is  composed.  Our  primitive  ancestors,  besides  be- 
queathing to  each  of  us  certain  universal  ideas  of  the 
duties  of  man  to  God,  to  the  Family,  and  to  the  State, 
handed  down  also  certain  common  institutions — Mon- 
archy, Aristocracy,  and  Popular  Control — representing 
various  interests  and  tendencies  in  society,  by  means 
of  which  it  has  been  our  destiny  to  develop,  accord- 
ing to  our  several  circumstances,  the  course  of  our 
national  life.  The  history  of  France  and  Germany 
shows  us  the  spectacle  of  one  or  other  of  these  prin- 
ciples growing  to  such  power  that,  like  Aaron's 
serpent,  it  swallows  up  the  rest.  On  the  other  hand, 
though  the  dominant  feature  in  the  political  history 
of  England  is  undoubtedly 

Freedom  slowly  bro;uleiiing  down 
From  precedent  to  precedent, 


288  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  growing  movement  of  liberty  thus  described 
does  not,  as  Tennyson's  verses  seem  to  imply,  arise 
from  the  inward  expansion  of  a  single  principle ;  it  is 
the  total  result  of  the  conflict  between  the  equally 
balanced  forces  of  Monarchy,  Aristocracy,  and  Demo- 
cracy. There  is  no  trace  in  the  history  of  England 
of  the  centralising  tendency  of  things  in  France, 
absorbing  all  the  functions  and  colour  of  local  liberty 
into  an  omnivorous  Absolutism.  There  is  visible  none 
of  the  anarchical  rivalry  of  Orders  that  prevailed  in 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  reducing  the  power  of  the 
Imperial  throne  to  impotence  and  inaction.  At  one 
time  in  our  history  the  Monarchical  principle  was  pre- 
dominant, at  another  the  Aristocratic  ;  forward  move- 
ment and  fresh  equilibrium  were  attained  by  the 
People  throwing  its  weight  into  one  scale  or  the  other, 
as  circumstances  required.  Centuries  of  conflict, 
sometimes  ending  in  civil  war,  were  needed  to  develop 
the  principle  of  hereditary  liberty,  contained  in  such 
documents  as  Magna  Cliarta  and  the  Bill  of  Rights, 
into  the  complex  fabric  of  the  British  Empire.  The 
leading  feature  in  the  character  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution is  its  power  of  reconciling  contrary  impulses 
of  action. 

As  it  has  been  with  us  in  the  external  sphere  of 
politics,  so  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  faith  and  imagination. 
From  the  very  early  days  of  our  religion  w^e  can  see  that 
a  universal  conflict  has  been  proceeding  in  the  mind  of 
Christendom,  between  the  principle  of  authority,  re- 
presented by  Councils  defining  the  dogmas  of  the 
Church,  the  principle  of  individual  liberty,  represented 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         289 

by  the  constant  succession  of  heresies  and  schisms, 
and  the  naturally  opposed  principles  of  Paganism  and 
Revealed  Religion.  But  during  the  last  six  centuries 
the  making  of  organic  thought  in  the  great  national 
communities  of  Europe  has  been  the  result  of  the 
fusion,  in  different  proportions,  of  certain  antagonistic 
elements, —  Catholicism,  Feudalism,  Humanism,  and 
Reform, —  and  each  nation  has  striven  to  settle  the 
struggle  proceeding  in  its  midst  in  the  way  most 
consistent  with  its  own  character. 

France,  in  which  the  principle  of  kingly  authority 
showed  from  the  first  a  tendency  to  be  predominant, 
found  little  difiiculty  in  reconciling,  at  least  super- 
ficially, the  principle  of  Catholicism  with  the  principle 
of  the  Renaissance.  A  Concordat  with  the  Pope  enabled 
Francis  I.  to  repress  the  inconvenient  aspirations  of  the 
Galilean  Church  ;  and  the  Pagan  splendour  of  the  late 
painting  and  sculpture  of  Italy  was  welcomed  at  the 
Court  of  a  monarch  who  boasted  the  title  of  the  Most 
Christian  King.  But  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation 
never  gained  a  foothold  in  the  French  imagination. 
Though  Clement  Marot  translated  the  Psalms,  and 
though  Rabelais,  in  the  early  editions  of  his  Romances, 
introduced  ideas  favourable  to  the  Humanist  reformers 
of  religion,  the  general  character  of  Marot's  poetry 
is  not  devotional,  and  Rabelais  made  haste  to  suppress 
his  liberalism  as  soon  as  he  found  it  was  disapproved 
by  authority.  The  genius  of  D'Aubigne,  the  greatest 
of  the  Huguenot  writers  of  mediaeval  France,  is 
hardly  representative  of  his  nation,  and  perhaps  the 
only  attempt  to  treat  the  subject  of  revealed  religion 


>9o  LAW  IN  TASTE 


spiritually  in  French  poetry  is  Boileau's  aridly  Jansen- 
ist  Epistle  on  the  Love  of  God. 

Germany,  in  the  sphere  of  spiritual  thought,  has 
been  as  unreservedly  on  the  side  of  individual  liberty 
as  France  on  the  side  of  central  authority.  She  it 
was,  above  all  other  countries,  who  nourished  the 
genius  of  the  Reformation.  In  the  persons  of 
Luther  and  Kant  she  led  the  revolt  against  what  is 
established  both  in  Religion  and  Philosophy.  But 
then  Germany,  owing  to  the  unmitigated  feudalism 
of  her  institutions,  was  incapable  of  assimilating  the 
intellectual  movement  of  the  Renaissance  at  the  same 
time  as  the  great  nations  of  Western  Europe.  The 
Classical  Revival  was  essentially  civic  in  its  origin, 
and  there  was  in  Germany  in  the  sixteenth  century 
no  recognised  civic  centre  round  which  art  and  litera- 
ture could  organise  themselves  to  the  same  extent  as 
in  France  and  England.  When  the  different  States 
of  the  Empire,  at  the  close  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
settled  down  into  exhausted  quietude,  the  Renaissance 
began  to  make  its  influence  felt  in  the  Courts  of  the 
Princes ;  but  its  operation  was  entirely  opposed  to 
the  experience  of  the  European  nations  of  the  West. 
Winckelmann,  Lessing,  and  Goethe  had  no  doubt  a  far 
clearer  insight  into  the  nature  of  Greek  art  than  the 
French  and  Italian  critics,  who  followed  the  pseudo- 
Aristotelian  tradition,  but  they  viewed  it  in  the 
abstract,  as  critics  and  philosophers,  and  not  in  its 
relation  to  the  life  of  their  own  country. 

England  has  marked  out  for  herself  a  path  of 
Culture  between  that  of  France  and  Germany.     The 


LECT.  V    THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         291 

bent  of  her  historical  character  has  been  to  blend  the 
principles  of  liberty  and  authority.  She  has  studied 
how  to  accommodate  the  necessities  of  innovation  with 
the  traditions  of  old  experience.  Into  our  Universities, 
the  cradles  of  the  ancient  Scholasticism,  we  received 
the  teaching  of  Erasmus  and  his  fellow  Humanists,  so 
that  when  Luther,  with  all  his  violent  Tertullian-like 
hatred  of  Greek  poetry  and  philosophy,  poured  him- 
self forth  in  a  flood  of  rebellion  against  the  old  regime, 
carrying  on  the  tide  of  his  enthusiasm  all  that  Ger- 
manic element  in  the  English  nation  which,  nearly  two 
centuries  before,  had  been  stirred  by  the  preaching  of 
Wycliffe,  we  were  saved  by  the  strength  of  our  dykes 
from  the  submerging  of  invaluable  elements  in  our 
life  and  history.  Yet  this  did  not  prevent  the  spirit 
of  the  Reformation  from  penetrating  the  inmost 
recesses  of  the  national  character,  or  from  finding  vivid 
forms  of  expression  in  the  greatest  works  of  English 
poetry.  I  need  say  nothing,  for  the  fact  is  obvious, 
of  its  influence  on  the  composition  of  Paradise  Lost ; 
but  its  presence  in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  though 
more  subtly  disguised,  is  equally  unmistakable.  I 
do  not  think  that  any  one  can  read  with  attention 
either  Hamlet,  Maeheth,  or  Measure  for  Measure, 
without  perceiving  how  powerful  was  the  conflict  in 
England  between  the  selfish,  egotistic,  material  prin- 
ciple of  life,  deliberately  advocated  by  such  an  illus- 
trious representative  of  the  Italian  Eenaissance  as 
Machiavelli,  and  the  principle  of  Conscience,  which 
was  the  prime  spiritual  cause  of  the  Reformation. 
From  all  this  it  seems  to  follow,   first,  that  the 


292  LAW  IN  TASTE 


*'  rules,"  or  '*  foreign  laws,"  of  which  Pope  speaks 
with  respect  in  the  Essay  on  Criticism,  are  only  one 
of  many  elements  that  have  combined  to  determine  the 
course  of  our  national  art  and  culture ;  and  that,  if 
English  poetry,  like  the  poetry  of  other  nations,  is  a 
mirror  of  our  national  character  and  history,  then  the 
great  fundamental  law  under  w^iich  the  ojenius  of  the 
English  poet  must  act,  in  order  to  produce  any  lasting 
work,  is  the  know^ledge  both  of  what  may  be  called 
the  Balance  of  Power  between  the  constituent  elements 
of  our  imagination,  and  also  of  the  method  of  fusing 
these  contrary  principles  into  a  harmonious  whole. 

In  practice  we  find  this  to  have  been  the  aim 
of  all  the  most  representative  English  masters,  not 
alone  in  the  art  of  poetry  but  in  the  art  of  painting. 
"  The  summit  of  excellence,"  says  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
in  his  Fifth  Discourse,  "  seems  to  be  an  assemblage 
of  contrary  qualities,  but  mixed  in  such  proportion 
that  no  one  part  is  found  to  counteract  the  others. 
How  hard  this  is  to  be  attained  in  every  art,  those 
only  know  who  have  made  the  greatest  progress  in 
their  respective  professions."  So  hard,  indeed,  is  it, 
that  one  notices  throuofhout  Sir  Joshua's  teachinor  a 
perhaps  excessive  tendency  to  insist  on  the  necessity 
of  often  suppressing  elements  of  life,  valuable  in  them- 
selves, for  the  sake  of  harmonious  effect.  For  example 
he  says  :  "A  statue  in  which  you  endeavour  to  unite 
stately  dignity,  youthful  elegance,  and  stern  valour, 
must  surely  possess  none  of  these  to  an  eminent 
degree.  Hence  it  appears  that  there  is  much  difficulty 
as  well  as  danger  in  an  endeavour  to  concentrate  in  a 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         293 

single  subject  those  various  powers  which,  rising  from 
different  points,  naturally  move  in  different  direc- 
tions." But  genius  is  genius  precisely  because  it 
knows  how  to  overcome  apparently  insuperable  diffi- 
culties. If  it  had  not  been  for  the  authority  of  Sir 
Joshua,  apparently  on  the  other  side,  I  should  have 
ventured  to  suggest  that  the  particular  combination 
of  qualities  he  supposes  w^as  to  be  found  in  the  statue 
of  the  Apollo  Belvedere,  and  I  am  at  least  confident 
that  it  is  well  within  the  reach  of  poetry,  which  of 
all  the  arts  is  the  one  with  most  capacity  for  the 
imitation  of  contrary  qualities  in  action. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  English 
Poetry  the  reconciliation  of  contraries  is  the  char- 
acter impressed  on  the  works  of  a  long  succession 
of  great  poets,  who  have  been  so  conscious  of  the 
strife  of  principles  in  their  own  sphere,  and  of 
the  dominant  tendencies  in  the  spirit  of  their  age, 
that  they  have  each  known  how  to  imitate  in  an 
ideal  form  the  movement  of  life  in  Nature  and  Society. 
We  see,  for  example,  the  principle  at  work  in  the  Visi07i 
of  Piers  the  Plowman,  in  which  the  poet's  powerful 
but  confused  attempt  to  work  out  an  ideal  scheme  of 
harmony  between  Church  and  State  so  strikingly 
anticipates  the  actual  course  of  events  at  the  Refor- 
mation. We  see  it,  too,  in  the  brilliant,  vivacious, 
squabbling,  company  of  Chaucer's  pilgrims  to  the 
shrine  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  the  representa- 
tives of  so  many  opposing  interests  and  so  many 
distinct  orders  in  society,  yet  all  united  by  the  sense 
of  a   common   religious  duty  to  be  performed,  and 


294  LAW  IN  TASTE 


already  so  far  advanced  in  the  art  of  self-government 
as  to  be  willing  to  compose  their  quarrels  under  the 
general  and  moderating  guidance  of  the  host  of  The 
Tabard.  The  most  profound  and  comprehensive 
conception  of  the  mingled  tragedy  and  comedy  of 
life  ever  expressed  in  poetry  is  to  be  found  in  the 
dramas  of  Shakespeare,  in  whose  genius  the  elements 
are  so  mixed  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  the 
spirit  of  the  ancient  Church,  of  the  Reformation,  or 
of  Humanism,  is  the  stronger.  The  Satires  of  Pope, 
faithfully  reflecting  in  this  respect  the  genius  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  seem  almost  to  eliminate  the 
mediaeval  element  from  the  national  imagination,  in 
a  purely  civic  development  of  the  principle  of  the 
Renaissance ;  but  in  Byron  and  Tennyson  the  spirit 
of  individual  liberty  returns  on  the  top  of  the  tide, 
seeking,  under  the  guise  of  mediaeval  forms,  to  express 
its  revolt  against  the  classic  and  aristocratic  conven- 
tions of  the  eighteenth  century,  without,  however, 
losing  sight  of  the  historic  conflict  of  principles  in 
English  Poetry. 

In  future  lectures  I  shall  hope  to  illustrate  the 
working  of  this  law  of  national  character  more  fully  and 
particularly  from  the  practice  of  our  most  representa- 
tive poets.  Meantime,  let  me  say  a  few  concluding 
words  about  the  kind  of  test  we  ought  to  apply,  to 
see  whether  the  law  is  fulfilled  in  any  work  of  con- 
temporary English  poetry  that  we  may  be  called  upon 
to  judge.  In  the  first  place,  I  would  repeat  what  I 
have  said  in  an  earlier  lecture,  that  the  presence  of  the 
Universal  in  a  work  of  art  cannot  always  be  inferred 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         295 

from  the  popularity  of  that  work.^  Tempting  no 
doubt  it  is  to  decide  in  this  way,  for  never  was  there 
an  age  in  which  Fame  travelled  with  such  lightning 
speed  as  our  own.  There  is  something  dazzling  and 
impressive  in  the  sale  of  tens  of  thousands  of  copies 
of  a  poem  or  a  romance,  nor  is  it  for  a  moment  to  be 
denied  that  any  book  which  succeeds  in  pleasing  the 
imagination  of  so  many  human  beings  must  possess 
ill  itself  some  striking  qualities  of  art,  though  not 
necessarily,  or  even  probably,  of  fine  art.  For  the 
people  judges  by  its  emotions,  sensations,  and 
instincts,  not  by  its  reason  ;  and  it  is  almost  as 
impossible  to  divine  the  efiect  which  a  work  of 
imagination  will  produce  on  the  popular  mind  as  to 
forecast  the  temper  in  which  public  opinion  will  act 
in  the  sphere  of  politics.  All  that  we  can  be  sure 
of  is  that  the  quality  in  a  work  of  art  which 
fascinates  the  imagination  of  the  people  will  be,  like 
the  considerations  that  sway  them  in  politics,  simple, 
obvious,  akin  to  their  superficial  sentiments,  and  as 
unlike  as  possible  to  that  mysterious  struggle  of 
opposite  forces,  the  sum  of  which  eventually  determines 
the  national  action  and  character,  A  novel  like  The 
Sorrows  of  Werther  will  always  be,  in  the  beginning, 
more  popular  and  famous  than  a  poem  like  Faust. 

Looking  at  the  matter  from  the  opposite  side, 
while  a  work  of  genius  will  necessarily  have  in  it 
an  element  strongly  appealing  to  the  universal,  and 
therefore  to  the  popular,  imagination,  we  know 
by   abundant    evidence   that   tlie   kind  of  imitation 

»  Pages  ir,0.1ol. 


296  LAW  IN  TASTE 


which  arrests  general  attention  is  not  that  in  which 
the  essential  motive  thought  of  a  great  poet  re- 
sides. For  example,  a  number  of  contemporary 
allusions  to  Hamlet  prove  beyond  question  that 
what  most  impressed  the  audience  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan theatre  was  by  no  means  the  general  plot 
of  the  play  or  the  character  of  the  Prince  of  Den- 
mark, but  the  appearance  of  the  ghost.  It  is  equally 
certain,  from  the  title  attached  to  the  early  acting 
copies  of  King  Lear,  that  the  imaginative  pleasure 
experienced  by  the  spectators  arose  much  less  from 
the  sublime  representation  of  the  madness  of  the 
old  king,  than  from  Edgar's  realistic  assumption  of 
the  character  of  poor  Tom  of  Bedlam. 

Equally  fallacious  is  it  to  look  for  the  character, 
which  is  the  mark  of  all  Fine  Art,  in  singularity  of 
expression.  There  is  a  very  strong  tendency  in  our 
times  to  adopt  this  standard  of  judgment.  Whether 
it  be  disdain  for  the  judgment  of  the  multitude,  or 
an  instinctive  perception  that  singularity  is  eventually 
the  surest  means  of  attracting  the  attention  of  the 
crowd,  every  observer  must  have  noticed  the  growing 
inclination  of  men  of  genius  to  invent  forms  which 
reflect  not  so  much  the  universal  character  of  the 
nation,  as  their  own  personal  peculiarities.  At  first 
this  studied  pursuit  of  unpopular  ends  meets  with 
coldness  and  contempt  in  the  public  at  large,  but  it 
is  noted  and  even  approved  by  the  intellectual  few, 
who  appreciate  more  intensely  eccentricity  in  an 
author,  in  proportion  as  they  value  in  themselves 
the  sagacity  which  enables  them  to  interpret  it.     By 


LECT.  V     THE  IDEA  OF  LAW  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         297 

degrees  an  ever-increasing  circle  of  admirers  imposes 
its  own  thoughtfulness  on  the  unreflecting  public, 
which,  though  still  unable  to  understand,  is  no  longer 
bold  enough  to  ridicule.  "  Those  who  come  to  mock 
remain  to  pray."  Surrounded  by  a  powerful  body- 
guard, the  once  neglected  inventor  of  singularities 
tramples  with  impunity  on  the  traditions  of  art,  and 
the  coterie  invests  with  a  species  of  temporary 
authority  an  eccentric  practice  which  may  have  its 
primary  roots  in  Mannerism  and  Affectation. 

The  just  mean  of  a  true  work  of  Fine  Art  lies 
between  Popularity  and  Singularity  ;  such  a  work  is 
the  expression  of  Universal  truth  bearing  the  stamp 
of  national  character.  The  critic  in  judging  a  new 
poem  will  do  well  to  ask  certain  questions  about 
its  qualities.  First  as  regards  its  conception.  Does 
it  strike  the  imagination,  in  its  general  effect,  as 
imitating  the  idea  of  Nature  as  a  whole  ?  Does  it 
reflect  in  itself  the  strife  of  opposing  principles  which 
make  up  the  sum  of  our  civilisation,  our  Christian 
faith,  our  hereditary  institutions,  the  long  tradition 
of  European  culture  ?  Are  these  conflicting  ideas 
fused  in  it  in  the  same  way  as  we  see  them  fused  in 
Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,  in  Shakespeare's  Hamlet, 
in  Pope's  Essay  on  Man,  in  Gray's  Elegy,  in  Tenny- 
son's In  Memoriam  f  So  too  in  respect  of  expression, 
every  English  poem,  which  is  really  a  work  of  fine 
art,  will  combine  in  itself  the  universal  with  the 
particular.  If  it  is  justly  conceived,  if  it  holds  the 
mirror  truly  up  to  nature,  then  the  expression  also 
will  seem  natural,  the  art  will  be  concealed,  and  the 


298  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 

effect  left  on  the  mind  will  be  Repose  and  not 
Violence  or  Singularity,  Close  examination  alone 
will  reveal  what  thought  and  labour  have  often 
been  given  to  arrive  at  this  result ;  the  selection  and 
rejection  of  ideas ;  the  choice  of  words  characteristic 
yet  not  forced  ;  the  variation  of  periods  ;  the  combina- 
tion of  harmonies  ;  in  a  word,  all  that  subtle  mixture 
of  elements  which  gives  life  and  soul  and  movement 
to  an  individual  style.  And  as  a  style  of  this  kind  is 
generalised  by  the  poet  from  a  wide  acquaintance  with 
the  practice  of  the  best  poets  in  our  literature,  so  it  can 
be  rightly  judged  only  by  those  who  have  a  knowledge 
of  the  historic  development  of  our  language.  In  criti- 
cising the  language  of  a  modern  poet,  look  in  his  verse 
to  see  if  it  possesses  the  hereditary  national  quality  of 
condensing  thought  in  an  ej)igrammatic  form — see  if 
you  can  find  a  family  likeness  in  it  to  lines  like  these : 

Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown. — Shakespeare. 

They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait. — Milton. 

A  man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 

Not  one,  but  all  mankind's  epitome. — Dryden. 

Man  never  is,  but  always  to  be,  blest. — Pope. 

The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave. — Gray. 

Who  would  be  free  themselves  must  strike  the  blow. — Byron. 

In  all  these  lines  the  total  effect  of  the  idea  expressed 
is  simple,  natural,  universal,  and  yet  the  individual 
character  is  strongly  marked,  and  the  means  adopted 
to  produce  the  effect  are  very  complex.  Such  a 
reconciliation  of  opposing  qualities  is  the  universal 
condition  of  all  Fine  Art. 


VI 

CHAUCER 

I  SAID  in  my  last  lecture  that  the  whole  course  of 
English  Poetry  was  a  continued  illustration  of  the 
primary  law  that  the  Universal  Pleasure,  which  is 
the  end  of  Fine  Art,  proceeds  from  the  harmonious 
fusion  of  contrary  qualities.  To-day  I  shall  try  to 
show  that  the  first  example  of  this  great  law  or 
characteristic  of  English  metrical  composition  is  to  be 
found  in  Chaucer,  who  is  therefore  rightly  regarded 
as  the  Father  of  our  Poetry. 

I  am  well  aware  that,  in  stating  these  proposi- 
tions, I  have  to  face  two  strong  contrary  currents  of 
opinion  :  one  the  popular  belief  or  prejudice  derived 
from  the  instinct  of  Race  ;  the  other,  the  scientific 
reasoning  of  critical  experts,  who  judge  of  all  ques- 
tions of  literature  mainly  by  the  light  of  Language. 
As  regards  the  first  of  these  forces,  we  live  in  a 
democratic  age,  and  a  democracy  is  impressed  by  the 
simplicity  of  phrases,  rather  than  by  the  science  of 
reasoning.  English  democracy  likes  to  think  that,  in 
the  British  Constitution  and  the  British  Empire,  the 


300  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Anglo-Saxon  element  is  the  only  one  worth  consider- 
ing ;  and  patriotism  welcomes  any  theory  which 
derives  the  genius  of  our  Poetry  from  a  purely  Anglo- 
Saxon  source.  The  theory  best  calculated  to  flatter 
this  instinct  is  the  theory  of  the  Philologists,  that, 
modern  English  being  the  direct  offspring  of  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  Poetry  being  merely  the  highest  and 
most  beautiful  form  of  language  as  it  exists  in  any 
particular  age,  Csedmon,  and  not  Chaucer,  is  to  be 
honoured  as  the  founder  of  English  Poetry. 

If  this  view  is  to  be  justified,  those  who  maintain 
it  must  be  able  to  prove  certain  positive  facts.  They 
must  show  a  continuity  in  the  art  of  English  Poetry 
from  Anglo-Saxon  to  modern  times,  attested  first  by 
the  Saxon  birth  and  lineage  of  the  poets ;  secondly, 
by  the  adoption  in  the  English  nation  of  a  mode  and 
system  of  versification  peculiar  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race ;  thirdly,  by  the  development  of  a  general  tradi- 
tion of  Culture  derived  from  purely  insular  and 
indigenous  sources.  I  hope  to  make  it  clear  to  you, 
not  only  that  none  of  these  three  things  can  be 
proved,  but  that  they  are  the  exact  opposite  of  the 
truth ;  that  from  the  time  of  Chaucer  an  element  of 
nationality,  which  is  not  Anglo-Saxon,  is  introduced 
by  the  very  necessity  of  things  into  the  lineage  of 
our  poets ;  that,  in  consequence  of  the  innovations  of 
Chaucer,  the  Anglo-Saxon  prosody  was  superseded  by 
modes  of  metrical  composition  of  French  origin ;  and 
that,  by  the  genius  of  the  same  poet,  the  exhausted 
stream  of  Anglo-Saxon  thought  was  replenished  and 
invigorated  from  the  fresh  fountains  of  imagination 


CHAUCER 


then  beginning  to  stir  the  mind  on  the  continent  of 
Europe. 

To  begin  with  the  question  of  birth  and  race. 
Before  the  Norman  Conquest  of  England  all  the  poets 
of  the  country  were  of  course  of  Saxon  descent.  We 
have  Caidmon  and  Cynewulf  and  the  authors,  who- 
ever they  were,  of  the  fine  poems  Judith,  and  The 
Death  of  Byrthnoth,  and  The  Battle  of  Brunanburh. 
After  the  Conquest  Orm  and  Layamon  continued  to 
write  in  a  language  that  still  preserved  something  of 
the  ancient  Saxon  structure.  But  Chaucer,  it  is  plain, 
was  of  a  different  race.  The  name  of  his  family — le 
Chancier — probably  derived,  according  to  Professor 
Skeat,  from  their  occupation  either  of  hosiers  or  shoe- 
makers, betokens  French  affinities ;  while  Verstegan, 
doubtless  relying  on  some  tradition,  describes  him  con- 
fidently as  being  of  the  Wallon  extraction.  And  if 
we  consider,  it  seems  to  be  perfectly  agreeable  to  the 
nature  of  things  that  a  poet  of  a  third  strain,  not 
Saxon,  not  Norman,  but  capable  of  understanding  the 
qualities  of  both,  should  have  first  learned  to  express 
the  genius  of  the  two  opposing  races  who,  under  the 
strong  rule  of  the  Norman  kings,  had  fused  them- 
selves for  ever  into  a  single  people.  Poetry  must 
reflect  in  the  sphere  of  imagination  whatever  is  the 
sovereign  principle  of  action  in  the  national  consti- 
tution. That  predominant  force  in  the  days  of  the 
elder  Plantagenets  was  certainly  not  mainly  Saxon. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  monarchy  had  fallen  a  victim  to  its 
own  internal  decay,  and  the  Norman  C/onquest  was 
due  to  the  inward  need,  felt  by  English  society,  of 


302  LAW  IN  TASTE 


being  reduced  to  form  and  order  by  some  force 
external  to  itself.  For  more  than  two  centuries  the 
great  Saxon  body  of  the  nation  suffered  the  chasten- 
ing discipline  imposed  upon  it  by  the  powerful  brain 
and  the  iron  will  of  its  Norman  rulers. 

A  striking  passage  in  Hallam's  Middle  Ages  vividly 
describes  the  position  of  the  Saxons  in  England  after 
the  Norman  Conquest :  "  I  would  not  extenuate  the 
calamities  of  this  orreat  revolution,  true  thouo;h  it  be 
that  much  good  was  brought  out  of  them,  and  that  we 
owe  no  trifling  part  of  what  inspires  self-esteem  to 
the  Norman  element  of  our  population  and  our  polity. 
England  passed  under  the  yoke ;  she  endured  the 
arrogance  of  foreign  conquerors  ;  her  children,  even 
though  their  loss  in  revenue  may  have  been  ex- 
aggerated, and  still  it  was  enormous,  became  a  lower 
race,  not  called  to  the  councils  of  their  sovereign,  not 
sharing  his  trust  or  his  bounty.  They  were  in  a  far 
different  condition  from  the  provincial  Romans  after 
the  Conquest  of  Gaul,  even  if,  which  is  hardly 
possible  to  determine,  their  actual  deprivation  of 
lands  should  have  been  less  extensive.  For  not  only 
they  did  not  for  several  reigns  occupy  the  honourable 
stations  which  sometimes  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Roman 
subject  of  Clovis  or  Alaric,  but  they  had  a  great  deal 
more  freedom  and  importance  to  lose.  Nor  had  they 
a  protecting  church  to  mitigate  barbarous  superiority  ; 
their  bishops  were  degraded  and  in  exile ;  the 
footstep  of  the  invader  was  at  their  altars ;  their 
monasteries  were  plundered  and  their  native  monks 
insulted.      Rome    herself  looked  with    little   favour 


CHAUCER  303 


on  a  church  which  had  preserved  some  measure  of 
independence.  Strange  contrast  to  the  triumphant 
episcopate  of  the  Merovingian  kings  !  " 

In  these  depressed  conditions  no  Saxon  poet, 
unless  endowed  with  unusual  flexibility  of  mind, 
could  have  so  divested  himself  of  the  attributes  of  his 
race,  as  to  imitate  the  manners  of  his  age  in  the  gay- 
temper  and  with  the  wide  knowledge  of  the  world 
exhibited  in  The  Canterbury  Tales.  He  would  have 
had  none  of  the  sympathy  or  insight  required  for  the 
production  of  such  finished  portraits  of  the  ruling 
classes  as  those  of  Chaucer's  Knight,  Monk,  or 
Prioress.  On  the  other  hand,  no  Norman  poet  living 
in  England  would  have  been  likely  to  study  the 
characters  of  such  insignificant  members  of  society 
as  Keves,  Millers,  and  Carpenters,  or  indeed  of 
the  wealthy  commercial  classes,  whose  representatives 
make  so  considerable  a  figure  in  the  group  of  pilgrims. 
Chaucer,  however,  being  neither  Saxon  nor  Norman, 
was  admirably  fitted  by  his  social  position  to  under- 
stand the  general  movement  of  things.  The  son  of  a 
London  vintner,  his  early  observation  and  criticism 
of  the  humours  of  middle-class  life  inspired  him  with 
the  idea  of  that  characteristically  English  imitation 
of  nature,  afterwards  carried  to  such  splendid  heights 
by  Shakespeare  in  his  Histories,  Tragedies,  and 
Tragi-Comedies.  As  a  servant  in  the  house  of  John 
of  Gaunt,  he  had  an  acquaintance  not  less  accurate 
and  profound  with  all  the  niceties  of  artificial  taste, 
by  which  the  conquering  nobility  sought  to  dis- 
tinguish  their  manners  from   those   of    the  vulgar ; 


304  LAW  IN  TASTE 


hence  his  satirical  portraits  of  courtiers  and  fine  ladies 
and  gentlemen  are  as  finely  finished  as  those  of 
Dryden  and  Pope  in  a  later  age.  In  the  ideal  atmo- 
sphere of  The  Canterbury  Tales  the  petty  distinctions 
between  Saxon  and  Norman  seem  to  disappear,  since 
both  races  are  measured  by  the  universal  standard 
of  humanity  and  common-sense. 

In  passing  to  the  second  question,  namely,  how  far 
Chaucer  is  justly  called  the  Father  of  English  Poetry 
by  virtue  of  his  language  and  versification,  I  may 
remark  that  I  have  been  myself  exposed  to  strong 
critical  censure  for  making  the  assertion,  that  between 
the  poetry  of  Caedmon  and  the  poetry  of  Chaucer 
there  is  absolutely  no  link  of  connection.  I  venture 
to  repeat  that  the  proposition  is  unassailable.  I  am 
not,  of  course,  so  foolish  as  to  mean  that  the  words 
which  Chaucer  used,  and  which  we  with  further 
alterations  use  to-day,  are  not  derived  from  the 
vocabulary  of  Csedmon  ;  the  question,  however,  relates 
less  to  words  in  themselves  than  to  syntax  and 
prosody.  If  Tennyson  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  lineal 
descendant  not  only  of  Chaucer  but  of  Csedmon, 
then  it  appears  to  me  that,  by  parity  of  reasoning, 
Victor  Hugo  must  be  allowed  to  trace  his  poetical 
pedigree  back  to  Ennius,  the  poems  of  Guillaume  de 
Lorris  and  Jean  de  Meung  being  treated  as  half-way 
houses  on  the  road.  This,  of  course,  would  be 
generally  recognised  as  absurd ;  yet  the  scientific 
principle  is  precisely  the  same.  The  alliterative 
versification  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  as  of  all  the 
primitive  Teutonic  nations,  was  the  product  of  the 


CHAUCER  305 


language  in  its  synthetic  form ;  and  when  that 
original  structure  fell  into  decay,  the  fabric  of  metrical 
harmony  naturally  collapsed  at  the  same  time. 
What  the  English  poets  in  the  fourteenth  century 
had  to  decide  was,  whether  the  ancient  Anglo-Saxon 
metrical  forms  could  be  still  preserved,  with  such 
modifications  as  were  required  by  the  altered  con- 
ditions of  the  language ;  or  whether  the  language 
required  to  be  recast  in  new  moulds  of  harmony  im- 
posed upon  it  from  without.  Both  these  conflicting 
ideals  had  their  supporters  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
The  most  distinguished  champion  of  the  Conservatives 
was  Langland,  author  of  TJie  Vision  of  William  con- 
cerning Piers  the  Plowman.  He  was  backed  in  his 
literary  practice  by  other  poets,  whose  names,  doubt- 
less well  known  in  their  day,  have  now  perished,  and 
who  wrote  the  poems  called  William  of  Paleme, 
and  Sir  Gawayne  arid  the  Green  Knight.  Chaucer 
was  the  head  of  the  innovating  poets,  who  wrote 
in  rhyme  after  the  French  manner.  His  system 
proved  victorious ;  and  he  has  therefore  justly  been 
acclaimed  by  Wyatt,  Surrey,  Spenser,  Dryden,  and 
Wordsworth,  as  the  founder  of  the  art  of  English 
Poetry. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  always  happens  in  such 
cases,  the  supporters  of  the  defeated  party  revenged 
themselves  by  denouncing  Chaucer  as  the  corrupter  of 
the  true  art  of  English  Poetry ;  just  as  Na3vius,  who 
tried  to  maintain  at  Rome  the  use  of  the  old  Saturnian 
metre,  observes,  in  his  self-made  epitaph,  with  an 
oblique  sneer  at    Ennius,  that  the  Cameuse   would 


3o6  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  iii 

bewail  himself  as  the  last  who  knew  how  to  speak  the 
Latin  tongue.  Skinner,  a  philologist  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  who,  like  his  modern  descendants, 
cared  much  more  for  antiquities  than  for  literature, 
speaks  of  Chaucer  in  a  Latin  passage,  which  may  be 
thus  translated  :  **  Through  this  unwholesome  itch  for 
novelty  the  Flemings,  by  introducing  French  words 
indiscriminately  into  their  country,  seriously  polluted 
the  purity  of  the  national  tongue ;  and  the  poet 
Chaucer  set  a  very  bad  example  by  importing  whole 
waggon-loads  of  words  from  France  into  our  language, 
robbing  it,  adulterated  as  it  was  in  consequence  of 
the  Norman  Conquest,  of  almost  all  its  native  grace 
and  beauty."  In  rather  milder  language,  Verstegan, 
another  philologist,  says :  "  Some  few  years  after 
came  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  who,  writing  his  poesies  in 
English,  is  of  some  called  the  first  illuminator  of  the 
English  tongue.  Of  their  opinion  I  am  not,  though 
1  reverence  Chaucer  as  an  excellent  poet  for  his  time. 
He  was,  indeed,  a  great  mingler  of  English  with 
French,  unto  which  language  (belike  for  that  he  was 
descended  of  French  or  rather  Wallon  race)  he  carried 
a  great  affection." 

Here  we  have  a  double  charge  brought  against 
Chaucer :  he  is  said  to  have  destroyed  the  existing 
standard  of  his  native  tongue,  which  in  itself  possessed 
''grace  and  beauty,"  and  to  have  done  so  by  mixing 
it  with  an  incongruous  foreis^n  idiom.  That  Chaucer 
imported  into  the  English  of  his  time  whole  waggon- 
loads  of  French  words  is  undeniable ;  but  that  he 
thereby  helped  to  destroy  a  beautiful  and   elegant 


LECT.  VI  CHAUCER  307 

form  of  existing  literature  is  a  mere  flourish  of 
rhetoric.  The  Anglo  -  Saxon  language  of  course 
possessed  a  literary  standard  both  in  verse  and 
prose,  just  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  kingdom  before  the 
Conquest  enjoyed  a  political  constitution ;  but,  like 
the  latter,  it  showed  no  capacity  for  growth  and 
expansion.  Even  in  the  hands  of  Layamon,  writing 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  Conquest, 
the  structure  of  the  alliterative  measure,  preserved 
by  many  generations  of  minstrels,  is  seen  to  have 
fallen  into  complete  decay;  while,  though  Saxon 
prose,  under  the  direction  of  Alfred,  had  proved 
itself  an  admirable  instrument  of  translation,  it  was 
never  used  for  any  form  of  original  composition 
more  inspiring  than  chronicles  and  homilies.  It 
possessed,  therefore,  no  quality  capable  of  arresting 
either  the  internal  change  which  was  rapidly  trans- 
forming the  structure  of  the  popular  speech,  or  the 
political  tendency  to  discourage  in  the  schools  the 
use  of  the  Saxon  grammar.  Higden,  the  antiquary, 
says  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III. :  "  The  impairing  of 
the  birth  tongue  is  by  cause  of  two  things  :  one  is 
for  that  children  in  school,  against  the  usage  and 
manner  of  all  other  nations,  be  compelled  for  to  learn 
their  own  language,  and  for  to  construe  their  lessons 
and  their  things  in  French,  and  have  since  the 
Normans  come  first  into  England.  Also  gentlemen's 
children  be  taught  for  to  speak  French,  from  the 
time  that  they  be  rocked  in  their  cradle,  and  can 
speak  and  play  with  a  child's  brooch.  And  up- 
laudish  men  will  liken  themselves  to  gentlemen,  and 


3o8  LAW  IN  TASTE 


make  a  great  business  for  to  speak  French  for  to  be 
more  accounted  of." 

From  this  it  is  phiin  that  both  the  decay  of  the 
old  Saxon  grammar,  and  the  importation  into  England 
of  French  words,  were  part  of  a  natural  movement  of 
things,  long  anterior  to  the  age  of  Chaucer,  and  quite 
independent  of  any  innovation  on  his  part.  The 
total  effect  of  the  movement  was  to  create  a  new 
composite  language,  which  at  present  was  without  a 
literature,  and  which,  if  it  was  to  become  an  instru- 
ment capable  of  expressing  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  civil  society,  required  to  be  subjected  to  the  same 
refining  influences  as  Dante's  predecessors  applied  to 
the  vulgar  tongue  of  Italy.  The  question  as  to  the 
poetry  of  the  new  language  was,  whether  the  main 
form  or  character  impressed  upon  it  should  be  Saxon 
or  French,  Langland  decided  for  the  Saxon  ;  and 
you  may  judge  of  the  metrical  effects  which  he  pro- 
duced by  the  opening  of  The  Vision  of  Piers  the 
Ploivman : 

In  a  somer  seson  •  whan  soft  was  the  sonne, 

I  shope  me  in  shroudes  •  as  I  a  shepe  were, 

In  habit  as  an  heremite  •  unholy  of  workes, 

Went  wyde  in  this  worlde  •  wondres  to  here. 

Ac  on  a  May  morning  •  on  Malvern  hulles 

Me  bifel  a  ferly  •  of  fairy  methoughte ; 

I  was  wery  forwandred  •  and  wente  me  to  reste 

And  as  I  lay  and  lened  •  and  looked  on  the  wateres 

I  slumbered  in  a  slepynge  •  it  sweyed  so  merie. 

Here  you  will  see  that  Langland  has  religiously  pre- 
served the  traditional  structure  of  the  alliterative 
measure,  two  stressed   syllables  beginning  with  the 


LECT.  VI  CHAUCER  309 

same  letter  being  placed  in  tlie  first  half  of  the  verse, 
and  one  stressed  syllable  beginning  with  the  same 
letter  as  the  others  in  the  second  half.  We  also 
perceive  in  his  verses  the  dactylic  movement  inherent 
in  Anglo-Saxon.  But  I  think  we  must,  most  of  us, 
feel  that,  while  this  measure  in  the  compact  inflected 
form  of  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  would  have  had  a  grand 
sound  when  chanted  by  the  minstrel,  the  efi"ect  in 
Middle  English,  as  a  vehicle  for  allegorical  narrative, 
is  disagreeably  monotonous.  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  conceive  that,  by  any  variety  of  pause  or  period,  a 
system  of  complex  harmony  could  have  been  developed 
out  of  such  an  inflexible  structure. 

Let  us  now  examine  what  Chaucer  made  of  his 
effort  to  combine  the  uninflected  remains  of  the 
Saxon  vocabulary,  and  the  analytic  grammatical 
forms  of  the  English  which  had  grown  out  of  the 
Saxon,  with  French  rhythms  and  metres.  The  result 
of  his  experiment  has  been  very  variously  judged. 
On  the  one  side  Dryden,  writing  when  English  had 
assumed  a  fixed  form,  and  knowing  nothing  of  the 
primitive  stages  of  the  language,  says  :  **  The  verse  of 
Chaucer,  I  confess,  is  not  harmonious  to  us.  They 
who  lived  with  him,  and  some  time  after  him, 
thought  it  musical ;  and  it  continues  so  even  in  our 
judgment,  if  compared  with  the  numbers  of  Lidgate 
and  Gower,  his  contemporaries.  'Tis  true  I  cannot 
go  so  far  as  he  who  published  the  last  edition  of  him, 
for  he  would  have  us  believe  the  fault  is  in  our  ears, 
and  that  there  were  really  ten  syllables  in  a  verse 
where  we  find  but  nine.     But  this  opinion  is  not 


3IO  LAW  IN  TASTE 


worth  confuting ;  'tis  so  gross  and  obvious  an  error, 
that  common  sense  (which  is  a  rule  in  every  thing 
but  matters  of  Faith  and  Revelation)  must  convince 
the  reader  that  equality  of  numbers  in  every  verse, 
which  we  call  '  heroic,'  was  either  not  known  or  not 
practised  in  Chaucer's  age.  It  were  an  easy  matter 
to  produce  some  thousands  of  his  verses  which  are 
lame  for  want  of  half  a  foot,  and  sometimes  a  whole 
one,  and  which  no  pronunciation  can  make  other- 
wise." 

I  need  hardly  point  out  to-day  that  Speght,  the 
editor  referred  to  by  Dryden,  was  perfectly  right  in 
his  opinion ;  and  that,  with  correct  orthography, 
there  are  few  verses  in  Chaucer  which  cannot  be 
read  harmoniously  according  to  the  pronunciation 
of  the  poet's  day.  So  far  indeed  has  opinion  veered 
round  on  the  subject,  that  the  tendency  now  rather 
is  to  teach  that  any  verse  of  Chaucer  or  his  contem- 
poraries, which  sounds  inharmonious  in  our  ears,  is 
to  be  defended  on  the  assumption  of  some  license 
recognised  by  the  metrical  composers  of  the  time.  I 
will  not  attempt  to  go  into  this  question,  but  will 
confine  myself  to  the  point  on  which  I  wish  to  insist, 
namely,  that  Chaucer,  by  adapting  French  principles 
of  versification  to  the  peculiar  conditions  of  Middle 
English,  took  the  best  means  possible  of  harmonising 
the  language,  and  that  his  practice,  in  its  most 
essential  features,  was  continued  and  developed  by 
the  poets  who  are  recognised  to  be  the  chief  masters 
in  the  use  of  the  heroic  couplet. 

For  it  is  this  measure  to  which  Dryden  is  alluding 


LECT.  VI  CHAUCER  3H 

in  the  criticism  I  have  just  read  to  you.  Chaucer 
introduced  it  into  England  from  France,  modelling 
his  usage  on  a  popular  French  poet,  rather  older  than 
himself,  Guillaume  de  Machault.  I  can  hardly  doubt 
that  the  French  decasyllabic  or  hendecasyllabic  line, 
which  is  the  basis  of  the  metre,  was  remotely  derived 
from  the  Latin  trimeter  iambic,  shortened  to  meet 
the  requirements  of  rhyme.  At  any  rate  the 
rhythmical  accentual  movement  is  equivalent  to 
that  of  the  iambus,  the  essence  of  the  French  metre 
being  that  the  line  should  consist  of  five  accents 
evenly  distributed,  and  of  ten  or  eleven  syllables, 
the  last  sounded  syllable  in  the  second  line  of  a 
couplet  rhyming  with  the  last  sounded  syllable  of 
the  first  line.  There  must  also  be  a  caesura  or  pause 
after  the  fourth  syllable. 

These  characteristics  are  preserved  in  the  English 
decasyllabic  line  of  the  normal  type,  whether  used 
in  the  couplet  or  not,  as,  for  example. 

They  dl  |  so  serve  |  who  6n  |  \y  sUnd  |  and  wait  | 

where  the  accent  falls  evenly  on  the  second,  fourth, 
sixth,  eighth,  and  tenth  syllables,  and  the  caesura 
after  the  fourth  syllable.  The  English  line,  however, 
admits  of  much  more  variety  than  the  French,  partly 
because  it  combines  the  trochaic  movement  (that  is 
to  say,  the  accentuation  of  the  first  of  two  syllables 
rather  than  the  second)  with  the  iambic — as  in  Pope's 
line,  "  Die  of  a  rose  in  aromatic  pain  " — and  partly 
because  in  it  the  csesura  can  fall  after  any  syllable 
between  the  third  and  the  seventh.     Till  the  time  of 


312  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Pope  this  latter  peculiarity  was  not  observed  by  the 
critics,  though  it  was  of  course  practised  by  the  best 
poets ;  and  George  Gascoigne  who  wrote  on  English 
Prosody  in  the  middle  of  Elizabeth's  reign  imagined 
that,  as  in  French  poetry,  the  caesura  must  always 
fall  after  the  fourth  syllable.  In  the  following 
couplet  of  Pope,  for  example,  the  caesura  in  the  first 
line  is  placed  after  the  fifth,  and  in  the  second,  after 
the  sixth  syllable  : 

Where  thou,  great  Anna,  |  whom  three  realms  obey 
Dost  sometimes  counsel  take,  |  and  sometimes  tea. 

We  see  the  caesura  falling  after  the  seventh  syllable 
in 

And  universal  Darkness  |  covers  all ; 

and  sometimes  we  find  a  line  with  a  kind  of  double 
caesura,  one  after  the  second  syllable,  one  after  the 
seventh,  as 

Lawrence,  of  virtuous  father,  virtuous  son. 

Now  while  none  of  these  shades  and  niceties  of 
harmony  are  to  be  found  in  the  early  English  poets 
who  imitated  the  French  rhyming  system,  and  who 
for  the  most  part  did  not  venture  beyond  the  facile 
octosyllabic  measure,  or  the  monotonous  Alexandrine, 
they  are  all  exhibited,  in  beautiful  completeness,  in 
the  versification  of  Chaucer,  as  may  be  verified  by 
any  one  who  takes  the  trouble  to  analyse  the  open- 
ing lines  of  the  Prologue  to  The  Canterbury  Tales. 
I  will  try  to  read  them  to  you  in  such  a  manner  that 


CHAUCER  313 


you  may  note  at  once  the  distribution  of  the  accent 
and  the  place  of  the  caesura  : 

Whan  that  Aprille  |  with  his  shoures  sote 
The  droghte  of  Marche  |  had  perced  to  the  rote 
And  bathed  every  veyne  |  in  swich  licour 
Of  which  vertu  |  engendred  is  the  flour ; 
Whan  Zephirus  |  eek  with  his  sote  breeth 
Inspired  hath  |  in  every  holt  and  heeth 
The  tendre  croppes  |  and  the  yonge  sonne 
Hath  in  the  Ram  |  his  halfe  cours  y-ronne 
And  smale  fowles  |  maken  melodye, 
That  slepen  al  the  night  |  with  open  ye, 
(So  priketh  hem  nature  |  in  hir  corages) ; 
Than  longen  folk  |  to  goon  on  pilgrimages, 
(And  palmers  j  for  to  seken  straunge  strondes) 
To  feme  halwes  |  couthe  in  sondry  londes ; 
And  specially  |  from  every  shires  ende 
»  Of  Engelond  |  to  Caunterbury  they  wende. 
The  holy  blisful  martir  |  for  to  seke. 
That  hem  hath  holpen  |  whan  that  they  were  seke. 

In  this  passage,  then,  you  may  observe  the  normal 
type  of  the  iambic  line,  with  the  accent  falling  evenly 
on  the  second,  fourth,  sixth,  eighth,  and  tenth 
syllables ;  the  combination  of  the  trochaic  with  the 
iambic  movement,  and  the  varied  distribution  of  the 
caesura.  You  find  in  the  very  opening  of  the  first 
line  an  example  of  a  trocliee  "  Whan  that "  ;  while 
out  of  eighteen  lines  the  caesura  falls  in  the  French 
manner  in  eight  after  the  fourth  syllable ;  in  five  of 
them  after  the  fifth  ;  in  two  after  the  sixth  ;  and 
twice  only  after  the  third  and  seventh  respectively. 

The  lines  further  illustrate  the  perfectly  regular 
process  by  which  Chaucer  naturalised  French  words 
in  English,   and  which   Skinner  calls  robbing   "our 


314  LAW  IN  TASTE 


language  of  its  native  grace  and  beauty."  "  Aprille," 
"March,"  "  veyne,"  "  licour,"  "  vertu,"  "  engendred," 
"flour,"  "  Zephirus,"  "melodyc,"  "nature,"  "corages," 
"pilgrimages,"  "palmers,"  "specially,"  are  all  words 
of  Latin  origin,  yet  they  associate  themselves  in  the 
most  friendly  manner  with  their  neighbours  of  Saxon 
descent.  The  composition  of  the  vocabulary  through- 
out the  entire  passage  is  a  marvellous  monument 
of  delicate  perception,  observation,  and  judgment. 
Chaucer  saw  that  the  two  languages  had  been  brought 
by  different  roads  to  almost  exactly  the  same  level, 
and  that  a  bridge  of  communication  existed  between 
them  in  their  common  use  of  the  final  vowel  e,  which, 
as  the  uniform  sign  in  each  of  ancient  inflections,  had 
assimilated  the  terminations  of  a  very  large  number 
of  French  and  English  words. 

Chaucer  also  availed  himself  of  the  perpetual 
migration  into  England  of  new  words,  to  enrich  and 
vary  the  resources  of  versification.  He  observed 
that,  while  the  tendency  of  English  was  to  throw 
back  the  accent  as  far  as  possible,  the  French  accent 
fell  on  the  final  or  penultimate  syllables  of  words ; 
and  since  the  naturalised  alien  words,  when  they  first 
settled  in  our  language,  retained  their  own  native 
mode  of  accentuation,  it  was  open  to  him  to  adapt 
his  usage  to  the  requirements  of  his  metre.  Thus 
we  see  in  the  Prologue  that  he  uses  "  vertu "  for 
"virtue";  " Natiire "  for  "Nature,"  "licoiir"  for 
"liquor";  but  when  it  suits  him  he  speaks  of 
"  virtue  "  and  "  Nature  "  ;  hence  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  language  was  ever  so  richly  equipped 


CHAUCER  315 


for  rhyming  purposes,  as  in  the  days  when  Chaucer 
was  bringing  about  his  much-abused  fusion  of  the 
Latin  and  Teutonic  stocks. 

I  pass  on  to  consider  poetry  as  a  mirror  of 
thought  and  culture ;  and  I  ask  what  would  have 
been  the  intellectual  character  of  English  poetry,  if 
the  Saxons  rather  than  the  French,  if  Csedmon  and 
not  Chaucer,  had  determined  the  line  of  its  develop- 
ment. The  answ^er  to  this  question  plainly  is,  that 
the  Character  of  its  thought  would  have  been,  in  the 
first  place,  so  overwhelmingly  religious  as  almost  to 
exclude  the  principle  of  the  secular  imitation  of 
life  and  action  ;  in  the  second  place,  it  would  have 
been  imitative  rather  than  original ;  in  the  third 
place,  it  would  have  been  insular,  and  little  accessible 
to  the  great  movement  of  art  and  learning  proceeding 
from  the  Continent. 

How  entirely  it  would  have  been  under  the 
guidance  and  domination  of  the  Church  is  shown 
by  the  consistently  ecclesiastical  character  of  the 
chief  monuments  of  Anglo-Saxon  or  Middle  English 
literature,  the  poems  of  Caidmon  and  Cynewulf, 
the  homilies  of  ^Ifric,  the  sermons  of  Wycliffe, 
the  allegory  of  Langland.  Imitative  the  English 
poets  would  no  less  certainly  have  been,  yielding 
to  the  ideas  presented  to  them  with  the  readiness 
rather  of  docile  scholars  than  of  orifjinal  inventors. 
The  Saxon  writers  I  have  mentioned  think  mainly 
of  instructing  their  hearers  in  the  truth  ;  they 
care  little  about  pleasing  their  imagination  with 
the   beauties  of  form   and   expression.     Hence  they 


3i6  LAW  IN  TASTE 


put  a  very  small  amount  of  their  own  thought  into 
the  ideas  which  they  strive  to  popularise  in  the 
Saxon  tongue.  The  writer  who  has  the  credit  for 
the  poems  of  Csedmon  contents  himself  avowedly 
with  a  paraphrase  of  the  Scripture  narrative  in 
Teutonic  phrases  and  imagery.  Alfred's  attempts 
to  found  a  school  of  Saxon  prose-writing  aimed  only 
at  translations  of  the  works  of  well-known  Latin 
theologians  and  historians.  Cynewulf  is  even  more 
completely  submissive  to  ecclesiastical  authority  than 
Csedmon.  The  few  Saxon  poets  who  venture  on  a 
flight  beyond  the  prescribed  boundaries  of  religious 
instruction  are  generally  tasteless  imitators  of  Latin 
originals.  Cynewulf's  contemporaries,  for  example, 
greatly  admired  the  riddles  of  a  very  poor  Latin 
poet,  Symphosius,  and  imitated  them  in  their  own 
phraseology ;  while  in  the  reign  of  Edward  IIL 
several  transcripts  of  tedious  French  romances  were 
made  into  modern  English  alliterative  verse.  As  to 
the  insular  tendencies  of  the  native  English  genius 
we  have  only  to  listen  to  the  sighs  of  the  monastic 
author  of  Cursor  Mundi,  and  the  Puritanic  reflections 
of  Robert  of  Brunne  on  the  sinfulness  of  dramatic 
entertainments  not  authorised  by  the  Church,  to  see 
how  strong  was  the  antipathy  of  the  Saxon  portion 
of  the  nation  to  the  movement  of  secular  art  and 
thought  invading  England  from  France  and  Italy. 

All  that  is  best  and  finest  in  the  Saxon  im- 
agination is  expressed  in  The  Vision  of  Piers  the 
Plowman.  No  one,  I  think,  can  study  the  great  poem 
of  Langland  without  feeling  that  he  is  in  the  company 


CHAUCER 


3U 


of  a  genius  endowed  with  very  admirable  qualities 
of  poetry.  It  is  written  with  the  faith  of  an  apostle 
and  the  indignation  of  a  satirist.  Langland  handles 
much  of  the  subject-matter  of  Chaucer  with  an 
observation  hardly  less  extensive,  and  with  thought 
more  profound.  His  imagination  is  at  once  sublime 
and  humorous.  At  times  it  moves  in  regions  of  the 
most  remote  mystery  ;  from  these  it  passes  abruptly 
to  imitate  the  humours  of  real  life,  with  all  the  relish 
and  accuracy  of  a  Dutch  painter.  Now  we  are  with 
Antichrist  and  his  forces,  besieging  the  House  of 
lenity ;  now  keeping  company  with  Tim  the  Tinker 
and  Wat  the  Warrener  in  a  tavern  on  Comhill, 
or  at  the  booths  of  Winchester  Fair.  But  whether 
he  be  humorous  or  sublime,  metaphysical  or  realistic, 
a  prophet-like  earnestness  animates  the  archaism  of 
his  style,  and  sounds  to  us  from  a  distant  century  the 
trumpet  notes  of  truth  and  sincerity. 

For  all  this  there  is  something  wanting  to  the 
poetry  of  Langland  that  prevents  it  from  taking  the 
same  rank  as  that  of  Chaucer.  It  lacks  the  note  of 
the  Universal,  Neither  in  the  mode  of  conception 
nor  in  the  form  of  expression  can  The  Vision  of 
Piers  the  Plowman  be  said  to  be  an  artistic  imita- 
tion of  Nature.  The  poet  himself  confesses  that  he 
is  unable  to  interpret  the  confused  view  of  life  which 
presents  itself  to  his  imagination.  He  describes  the 
vision  that  he  saw  of  the  Field  full  of  Folk,  of  which, 
however,  he  could  make  nothing,  till  he  was  aided 
by  Holy  Church.  Holy  Church  puts  into  his  hands 
the  key  with  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  she  provided 


3i8  LAW  IN  TASTE 


all  theologians  and  poets — the  allegorical  interpre- 
tation of  Nature  and  Scripture.  The  adoption  of 
this  mode  of  imitation  would  not  have  been  in  itself 
a  bar  to  the  treatment  of  the  subject  on  universal 
lines,  for  both  The  Divine  Comedy  and  The  PilgHms 
Progress,  founded  as  they  are  on  ideas  common  to 
the  Christian  world,  are  in  their  general  scheme 
perfectly  intelligible.  But  in  order  to  understand 
even  the  framework  of  Langland's  narrative,  we 
must  not  only  have  a  pretty  extensive  acquaintance 
with  the  history  of  his  times,  but  also  with  the 
view  of  the  triple  division  of  Feudal  society  held  by 
the  scholastic  theologians.  And  even  when  this  has 
been  mastered,  the  general  idea  of  life  presented  in 
the  poem  is  that  of  a  mystic,  the  final  impression 
left  on  the  imagination  a  chaos  of  confused,  though 
poetical,  details. 

No  poem,  in  respect  of  its  design,  offers  a  stronger 
contrast  to  The  Vision  of  Piers  the  Plowman  than 
The  Canterbury  Tales.  The  Feudal  system,  with 
all  the  vast  fabric  of  society  built  on  its  founda- 
tions, has,  like  the  primaeval  vegetation  converted 
into  coal,  been  long  ago  metamorphosed  by  time  into 
other  forms ;  yet  in  the  poetry  of  Chaucer,  the 
image  of  the  ancient  structure  abides  for  ever. 
The  gathering  of  the  pilgrims  with  a  common  purpose 
in  the  courtyard  of  the  Tabard  Inn ;  the  wonder- 
ful composition  of  the  wayfaring  group,  its  religious 
equality,  its  social  etiquette  ;  the  masterly  figures  of 
the  Knight,  the  Monk,  the  Franklin,  the  Wife  of 
Bath,    vivid  and    clear-cut  as   the  sculptures  of  the 


CHAUCER  319 


Parthenon ;  the  general  air  of  freshness,  simplicity, 
and  nature,  pervading  the  whole  poem,  and  especially 
the  Prologue ;  in  all  these  features  the  great  work  of 
Chaucer  furnishes  perhaps  the  most  instructive  ex- 
ample in  literature  of  the  true  methods  of  imitative 
art. 

Push  the  comparison  with  Langland  a  little 
further,  and  you  find  that  Chaucer's  artistic  supe- 
riority arises  from  his  power  of  reconciling  contrary 
principles  of  imagination.  In  the  first  place,  we  ob- 
serve the  complete  fusion  in  The  Canterbury  Tales 
of  the  universal  and  the  particular.  The  poet's 
first  care  is  to  form  in  his  imagination  a  general  plan 
and  outline  of  ideal  action.  When  this  has  been 
arranged,  he  is  prepared  to  fill  in  the  details  with 
a  minuteness  of  imitation  which  must  satisfy  the 
strictest  Preraphaelite,  and  to  justify  himself,  on 
dramatic  principles,  against  some  of  the  objections 
made  to  the  realism  of  his  painting. 

Who  so  shall  telle  a  tale  after  a  man, 

He  moot  reherce  as  ny  as  ever  he  can 

p]verich  a  word,  if  it  be  in  his  charge, 

Al  speke  he  never  so  rudeliche  and  large. 

Or  elles  he  moot  telle  his  tale  untrewe 

Or  feyne  thing,  or  finde  wordes  newe. 

He  may  nat  spare,  althogh  he  were  his  brother ; 

He  moot  as  wel  seye  o  word  as  another. 

Crist  spak  himself  ful  brode  in  holy  writ, 

And  wel  ye  woot  no  vileinye  is  it. 

Eek  Plato  seith,  who  so  that  can  him  rede, 

The  wordes  mote  ben  cosin  to  the  dede. 

Langland'a  imitation  of  details    is    equally  minute  ; 


320  LAW  IN  TASTE  partiii 

but  then  Langland  did  not  know  how  to  frame  the 
organic  whole  to  which  the  real  details  should  give 
life  and  colour. 

Again  Chaucer  may  be  advantageously  contrasted 
with  Langland,  and  other  of  his  immediate  pre- 
decessors, in  his  treatment  of  the  opposing  principles 
of  art  and  morality.  Two  extreme  and  rival  opinions 
have  always  divided  opinion  on  this  subject.  One 
side  maintains  that  art  must  be  the  immediate 
servant  of  morality ;  that  it  is  the  business  of  the 
poet  to  decide  how  he  will  instruct  and  improve 
mankind,  before  he  thinks  of  imitating  Nature. 
Langland  and  all  the  Saxon  poets  before  him  took 
this  didactic  view.  On  the  other  side,  it  is  contended 
that  art  is  independent  of  morals ;  and  is  concerned 
only  with  imitation — an  opinion  which  is  brilliantly 
illustrated  in  the  Decameron.  For  beauty  and 
symmetry  of  structure  Boccaccio's  work  is  almost 
unrivalled ;  and  yet  the  entire  absence  in  its  design 
of  the  ethical  element  deprives  it  of  a  claim  to 
stand  in  the  very  highest  rank  among  the  monuments 
of  human  imagination.  Chaucer,  with  rare  insight, 
recognises  that  he  must  reconcile  these  two  antag- 
onistic views.  His  business  as  a  poet  was  in  the 
first  place  with  story-telling,  but  he  would  have 
been  untrue  to  all  the  traditions  of  English  art  and 
character  if,  in  the  composition  of  his  stories,  he 
had  ignored  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
It  was  from  the  Church  that  th-Q  fabliau  had  received 
its  first  refinement ;  collections  of  monastic  tales  like 
Barlaam   and   Josafat   and    the    Gesta   Romanum 


LECT.  VI  CHAUCER  321 

had  pioneered  the  way  for  the  Decameron.  The 
Church  too  had  preserved  in  her  Ark,  through  the 
ages  of  barbarism,  all  the  salvage  of  ancient  art 
and  science  which  enriched  the  active  imagination 
of  the  early  European  poets.  To  eliminate  the  moral 
element  in  story-telling  was  therefore  to  be  a  traitor 
to  the  Church,  of  which  Chaucer  was  a  faithful  son. 

On  the  other  hand,  Chaucer  knew  that,  as  an 
artist,  his  first  duty  was  imitation,  instruction  only 
his  second.  Moreover,  he  was  the  first  English  poet 
who  was  a  layman ;  and  he  looked  on  Nature  and 
society  with  the  steady  gaze  of  one  who  had  been 
both  a  soldier  and  a  diplomatist.  In  order  to 
harmonise  these  conflicting  claims,  he  bases  his 
central  scheme  on  a  dramatic  principle.  In  TJie 
Canterbury  Tales  most  of  the  imitations  of  Nature 
are  moral,  but  they  are  accommodated  with  perfect 
propriety  to  the  character  of  the  different  story- 
tellers ;  and  what  is  wanting  to  any  speaker  in  the 
way  of  taste  and  refinement  is  corrected  by  the 
criticism  of  his  companions.  In  this  way  Chaucer 
avoids,  on  the  one  hand,  the  tediousness  of  the 
sermon,  which  is  a  flagrant  defect  in  the  composition 
of  Langland's  Vision ;  and  on  the  other,  the  shame- 
less license  which  discredits  the  character  of  the  gay 
company  in  the  Decameron. 

But  the  crowning  triumph  of  Chaucer's  art,  as 
contrasted  with  Langland's,  was  his  naturalisation  in 
English  poetry  of  the  highest  culture  of  continental 
Europe.  The  English  people  had  been  trained  by 
degrees  to  accept  a  new  standard  of  taste.    Chastened 


322  LAW  IN  TASTE 


and  braced  by  centuries  of  stern  discipline  under 
Norman  rule,  they  had  become  conscious  of  their 
revived  power  as  a  nation ;  at  Crecy  and  Poitiers 
they  had  avenged  the  defeat  inflicted  on  them  by 
the  French  at  Hastings.  The  new  language,  which 
had  sprung  out  of  the  marriage  between  Saxon  and 
French,  had  expelled  the  latter  tongue,  first  from  the 
law  courts  in  the  reign  of  Edward  IIL,  and  after- 
wards from  the  grammar  schools  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  II.  But  as  yet  the  dominant  feeling  in  the 
English  mind  was  a  narrow  insular  patriotism,  which 
expressed  itself  in  the  poetry  of  Laurence  Minot,  in 
a  manner  much  resembling  the  spirit  of  those  who 
are  now  called  Jingoes,  when  they  boast  of  the 
superiority  of  the  English  to  all  other  nations.  No 
English  writer  before  Chaucer  had  shown  himself 
alive  to  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  forces  which,  in 
every  country  of  Europe,  were  transforming  the  life 
of  Catholic  and  Feudal  society. 

Chaucer  introduced  these  new  ideas  to  his 
countrymen.  His  position  in  the  household  of  John 
of  Gaunt  obliged  him  to  study  the  prevailing  tastes 
of  Norman  chivalry,  and  these  are  reflected  in  his 
translation  of  The  Romance  of  the  Rose,  The 
Parlia/ment  of  Foules,  The  Legend  of  Good  Women, 
and  other  poems.  But  of  far  more  importance  to 
the  enlargement  of  English  Culture  was  his  inter- 
course with  Italy,  to  which  country  he  was  twice 
sent  on  missions  of  diplomacy.  He  had  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  Italian  literature.  The  House 
of  Fame  shows  that  he  had  studied  Dante's  Divine 


LECT.  VI  CHAUCER  323 

Comedy ;  he  translated,  or  rather  re- wrote  in  English, 
the  Filostrato  of  Boccaccio,  embodying  in  his  version 
a  poem  of  Petrarch  ;  and  though  some  would  persuade 
us  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the  Decameron,  I  cannot 
think  that  a  man  of  such  omnivorous  reading  was  not 
well  acquainted  with  that  famous  work. 

From  his  studies  of  Italian  life  and  literature  he 
learned  that  humane  and  civic  art  which  character- 
ises the  composition  of  The  Canterbury  Tales.  Life, 
manners,  and  the  general  movement  of  things,  disclosed 
themselves  to  his  imagination  in  their  true  propor- 
tions, and  the  ideal  reflection  of  his  experience  is 
seen  in  the  admirable  methods  of  good  breeding, 
irony,  and  common  sense,  with  which  characters  like 
the  Knight  and  the  Host  regulate  the  behaviour  of 
their  fellow  pilgrims.  Equal  consideration  is  shown 
to  all  the  company,  yet  each  member  of  it  is  kept 
in  his  proper  place.  We  have  none  of  the  scolding 
dogmatism  with  which  Langland's  Abstract  Person- 
ages tell  the  reader  what  he  ought  to  think  and 
do :  the  men  and  women  of  the  pilgrimage,  by  their 
own  behaviour,  whether  dignified,  vulgar,  absurd,  or 
indecent,  show  us  what  is  right  and  wrong  in  human 
conduct.  The  busy  host  interferes  to  put  down  the 
squabbles  between  the  meaner  persons ;  when,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  Monk  wearies  the  audience  with  the 
insuti'erable  length  of  his  Tragedies,  the  Knight,  as 
becomes  his  high  station,  is  made  to  act  as  the 
saviour  of  society.  Sometimes,  again,  the  tale  told  is 
intended  to  cast  ridicule  on  the  taste  for  long-winded 
romances,  and  then   the  poet  himself   assumes   the 


324  LAW  IN  TASTE 


responsibility  for  boring  his  companions,  and  patiently 
puts  up  with  their  unceremonious  criticism,  which 
reflects  the  actual  change  of  taste  in  society  at  large. 

Hence,  though  Chaucer  can  in  no  sense  be  called 
the  descendant  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  poets,  and  though 
he  may  be  said  to  have  imported  into  England  not 
only  waggon-loads  of  words  from  France,  but  streams 
of  ideas  from  that  country  and  Italy,  yet  is  he  justly 
accounted  the  father  of  English  poetry.  Since  his 
time  our  poetry  has  continued  from  age  to  age  to 
develop  the  mixed  character  which  he  was  the  first  to 
impress  upon  it,  reflecting  the  varying  forces  which 
played  upon  his  own  imagination.  In  The  Canterbury 
Tales  we  see  the  first  outlines  of  that  mixed  manner 
of  conceiving  the  external  contrasts  of  Life  and  Society 
which  Shakespeare  afterwards  brought  to  maturity  in 
his  tragi-comedies ;  we  see  too  the  already  mature 
development  of  a  dramatic  imagination  which  de- 
lights in  representing  the  spiritual  inconsistencies  of 
human  nature.  Of  this  quality  the  main  ingredient 
is  humour,  that  peculiar  creative  power  which  can 
make  an  imaginary  person  expose  his  own  weaknesses 
and  absurdities  without  destroying  all  regard  for  him 
in  the  aff'ections  of  the  reader  or  spectator.  Since  the 
Wife  of  Bath  related  her  experiences  of  marriage,  this 
kind  of  oblique  satire  has  made  itself  felt  again  and 
again  in  the  mouths  of  ideal  personages  in  English 
literature — Falstaff"  and  Dogberry,  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley,  Bailie  Nicol  Jar  vie  and  the  Laird  of 
Dunibiedikes,  Mr.  Pickwick  and  Mr.  Micawber,  Mrs. 
Nickleby,  and  even  Mrs.  Gamp.     No  foreign  nation 


LECT.  VI  CHAUCER  325 

having  produced  ideal  work  of  a  like  character  (with 
the  single  notable  exception  of  Don  Quixote),  English 
poetry  may  fairly  claim  pre-eminence  in  creative 
humour,  and  as  The  Canterbury  Tales  are  the  first 
example  of  such  imitation,  the  glory  of  having  im- 
pressed this  character  on  English  poetry  must  be 
ascribed  to  Chaucer. 

To  Chaucer  again,  as  I  have  already  urged,  is  due 
the  mixed  character  of  our  versification.  He  deter- 
mined its  course  while  the  judgment  of  the  poets  was 
still  wavering.  Ennius  first  found  out  the  way  to 
naturalise  Greek  metres  in  the  Latin  language,  thus 
converting  it  into  a  harmonious  instrument  for  the 
expression  of  lofty  thought  and  emotion  ;  and  in  like 
manner  did  Chaucer  refine  the  Saxon  vocabulary  with 
rhythms  and  metres,  derived  from  France  and  Italy, 
which  have  served  as  the  vehicles  of  ideas  for  many 
generations  of  English  poets.  The  correctness  of  his 
intuition  and  the  soundness  of  his  procedure  were  at 
once  acclaimed  by  the  despairing  emulation  of  his 
disciples  and  successors,  Lydgate  and  Occleve ;  in  the 
next  age  the  new  rhetoric  he  had  established  was 
carried  north  of  the  Tweed  by  James  I.  of  Scotland  : 
when  Wyatt  and  Surrey  introduced  into  our  language 
the  refinements  of  Italy,  their  experiments  were  still 
based  on  the  vocabulary  and  syntax  of  Chaucer  ;  and 
it  was  from  that  "  well  of  English  undefiled "  that 
Spenser  drew  the  enchanted  words  and  images  which 
enabled  him  to  transport  the  fancy  into  Fairyland. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  Chaucer's  poetry  contains 
none  of  the  dactylic  and  anapa)stic  movements,  charac- 


326  LAW  IN  TASTE 


teristic  of  Anglo-Saxon,  which  later  ages  have  drawn 
out  of  our  language  :  from  the  existing  conditions  of 
the  tongue  this  would  have  been  impossible ;  but  of 
the  large  volume  of  our  versification,  up  to  the  age 
of  Tennyson,  which  is  inspired  by  the  iambic  move- 
ment and  derived  from  French  sources,  Chaucer  is 
the  fountain-head. 

And  as  the  mixed  character  of  the  English  people 
has  been  the  inspiring  source  of  Chaucer's  poetry,  so 
is  the  poetry  of  The  Canterbury  Tales  perhaps  the 
most  accurate  of  all  mirrors  for  reflecting  the  English 
character.  At  first  this  may  seem  a  paradoxical  say- 
ing. Since  the  mirthful  company  of  pilgrims  rode  out 
of  the  courtyard  of  The  Tabard  on  a  showery  April 
morning,  more  than  five  hundred  years  ago,  the  feudal 
character  of  English  society  has  vanished  as  com- 
pletely as  the  material  fabric  of  that  famous  inn. 
A  new  nation  seems  to  have  grown  up  vastly  trans- 
cending the  old  in  all  the  arts  and  amenities  of  life. 
The  England  of  to-day  possesses  means  of  expression 
for  its  sentiments,  ideas,  and  opinions,  of  which 
those  simple  pilgrims  never  dreamed.  Every  morn- 
ing the  journalist  puts  together  for  our  instruction 
a  coherent  image  of  the  world,  in  which  the  whole 
surface  of  life,  with  all  its  incidents  and  emotions, 
is  photographed  with  marvellous  accuracy,  and  in 
which  the  judgment  of  the  spectator  on  the  transient 
drama  is  expressed  in  a  lucid  form  of  words.  So 
vivid  to  each  mind  is  this  reflection  of  its  own  ex- 
perience, that,  for  the  moment,  what  is  really  but  the 
reflection  of  our  environment  seems  to  be  the  living 


LECT.  VI  CHAUCER  327 

portrait  of  ourselves.  And  yet  the  lapse  of  a  montli, 
a  week,  even  a  day,  may  so  completely  alter  the 
external  aspect  of  things,  or  our  opinion  of  them  may 
be  so  entirely  revolutionised,  that  in  the  new  kaleido- 
scopic figure  presented  to  us  by  the  journals  we 
look  in  vain  for  a  single  feature  of  our  former  con- 
sciousness. 

Compared  with  the  confused  and  evanescent 
imagery  of  real  life,  how  changeless  and  abiding  is 
that  ideal  English  landscape  with  its  varied  company 
of  pilgrims,  "  ever  on  the  march  through  the  brilliant 
atmosphere  of  April,"  sparkling  with  many-coloured 
robes  and  exhilarated  with  cheerful  sounds,  as  the  cook 
rides  out  ahead  playing  on  the  bagpipes,  and  the  abbot 
follows  with  his  bridle  jingling  in  the  whistling  wind  ! 
How  English  it  all  seems  !  The  little  society  so  lively 
and  pugnacious,  so  petulant  and  free  of  speech,  and 
yet  so  amenable  to  law  and  order !  The  pilgrims 
themselves,  each  alive  with  human  follies  and  whims, 
— the  demure  gray-eyed  Prioress,  with  her  aristocratic 
daintiness,  her  pet  dogs,  and  her  motto  derived  from 
the  Courts  of  Love — the  physician,  whose  study  was 
but  little  on  the  Bible — the  bustling  Serjeant  at  Law, 
who  yet  seemed  busier  than  he  was — the  Friar,  proud 
of  his  artificial  lisp — the  Wife  of  Bath,  man-like  in 
her  scarlet  hose  and  with  her  sharp  spurs — the  Host 
himself,  large,  and  frank,  and  wise  in  his  savoir /aire , 
possessed  of  all  the  qualities  required  for  a  guide  and 
leader  of  men !  And  as  the  imagination  dwells  with 
delight  on  the  clear  outlines  of  a  scene  vivid  with  all 
these  jewels  of  description,  it  is  marvellous  to  think 


328  LAW  IN  TASTE 


that  we  are  lookinfj  on  the  resemblances  of  men 
and  women  who  have  been  in  their  graves  for  five 
centuries :    settinor  aside  their  dress  and  a  somewhat 

o 

old-fashioned  mode  of  expression,  we  might  be  in  the 
company  of  our  next-door  neighbours  of  to-day.  But 
Aristotle  can  furnish  us  with  the  key  to  the  mystery  : 
it  is  to  be  found,  he  would  tell  us,  in  the  poet's 
knowledge  of  the  law  of  Fine  Art  :  "  Poetry  is  a 
higher  and  more  philosophical  thing  than  history  ;  for 
while  history  expresses  only  the  particular,  poetry 
tends  to  express  the  universal." 


VII 

MILTON 

A  PRELATE  eminent  in  letters  recently  told  me  that 
he  had  tried  without  success  to  persuade  the  young 
men  and  women  of  his  acquaintance  to  study  Para- 
dise Lost.  On  my  asking  him  the  reason,  he  said 
that  his  friends  informed  him  that  they  could  not 
put  up  with  Milton's  theology.  The  answer  seemed 
to  me  a  remarkable  one  for  two  reasons.  In  the 
first  place,  I  was  struck  with  the  profound  ignorance 
it  disclosed  of  the  first  principles  of  criticism  in  those 
who  thought  it  sufficient.  To  judge  a  poem  by  its 
theology,  or  even  its  morality,  is  very  much  like 
valuing  a  horse  by  its  colour  or  the  length  of  its  tail ; 
and  I  imagine  that  if  there  be  any  who  attempt  to 
make  purchases  in  the  horse-market  on  this  principle 
they  do  not  find  themselves  in  possession  of  very 
excellent  bargains.  Some  elementary  knowledge  of 
the  "  points "  of  a  poem  is  required  in  the  person 
who  presumes  to  pass  a  judgment  on  it. 

But  again  I  was  impressccl  with  the  extraordinary 
vanity  and  conceit  implied  in  the  judgment  of  the 
Bishop's  young  friends.     Not  to  be  able  to  **  put  up  " 


330  LAW  IN  TASTE 


with  Paradise  Lost  involves  a  belief  in  the  mind  of  the 
critic  that  the  blame  for  this  distaste  is  to  be  imputed 
to  the  defect  of  the  poet  rather  than  to  his  own  insen- 
sibility. And  perhaps  at  first  sight  it  might  seem  as 
if  there  were  something  to  be  pleaded  in  defence  of  this 
conclusion,  since  Aristotle  says  justly  that  the  end  of 
Fine  Art  is  to  produce  pleasure ;  and  Addison  says 
with  equal  justice  that  the  art  is  to  conform  to  the 
taste,  and  not  the  taste  to  the  art.  But  then  the 
pleasure  and  the  taste  which  Aristotle  and  Addison 
are  thinking  of  are  not  the  pleasure  and  taste  of 
the  individual,  but  the  permanent  judgment  of 
the  world  :  "  Quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  ab 
omnibus."  An  established  classic,  a  work  of  fine  art 
which  has  passed  this  ordeal,  becomes  an  integral  part 
of  the  law  of  taste ;  before  any  individual  dissents 
from  the  general  judgment  he  must  understand  thor- 
oughly the  grounds  upon  which  it  has  been  passed  ; 
and  if  he  finally  elects  to  abide  by  his  own  judgment 
in  preference  to  that  of  the  world,  he  must  face  the 
presumption  that  his  taste  is  wrong. 

Now  Paradise  Lost  is  one  of  the  few  supreme 
poems  on  which  the  opinion  of  competent  judges  has 
been  practically  unanimous.  Critics  have  spoken  of  it 
in  very  diff'erent  tones  of  sympathy  and  enthusiasm  ; 
but  not  one  has  ventured  to  question  the  presence  in 
it  of  qualities  denoting  sublime  genius.  Algarotti, 
Addison,  Voltaire,  Johnson,  Macaulay  have  in  un- 
qualified language  paid  a  tribute  to  its  colossal  great- 
ness. If,  therefore,  there  be  in  the  present  day,  with 
all  its  gushing  appreciation,  all  its  hurried  exaggera- 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  331 

tion  of  the  value  of  contemporary  work,  a  tendency  to 
under-estimate  the  rank  of  Milton  in  poetry,  it  is  at 
least  desirable  that  the  question  should  be  examined 
on  clear  technical  principles,  and  I  have  therefore 
determined  to  ask  you  to-day  to  consider,  as  scientific- 
ally as  possible,  what  those  qualities  are  in  Paradise 
Lost  which  ought  to  secure  for  it  the  reverence  and 
admiration  of  all  lovers  of  Fine  Art. 

The  locus  classicus  for  the  appreciation  of  the 
poem  is  of  course  the  series  of  papers  written  by 
Addison  in  the  Spectator,  and  I  should  recommend 
every  one  who  wishes  to  get  a  well-proportioned 
view  of  the  whole  composition  to  study  carefully  that 
excellent  criticism.  It  contains,  indeed,  no  profound 
thought ;  all  the  observations  lie  on  the  surface  ;  but 
it  gives  the  student  a  clear  insight  into  the  general 
structure  of  the  work,  and  selects  with  admirable 
taste  and  judgment  the  specimens  of  its  particular 
beauties.  As  a  positive  estimate  of  Milton's  poetical 
performance,  however,  it  is  open  to  one  objection, 
namely,  that  Addison,  following  the  example  of  the 
French  and  Italian  critics  of  his  age,  professedly 
applies  in  aU  its  details  the  method  of  critical  analysis 
adopted  by  Aristotle  in  his  Poetics,  thus  leaving  on 
the  mind  of  the  reader  the  impression  that  Milton's 
merit  consists  in  satisfying  Aristotle's  rules.  Now, 
as  neither  Milton  nor  any  other  great  poet  ever 
thought  in  his  composition  of  Aristotle's  rules,  this 
line  of  analysis  does  not  follow  the  order  of  nature  ; 
nor  will  it  avail  with  any  critic  who,  starting  with  a 
prejudice  against  Milton,  is  also  indisposed  to  accept 


332  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  in 

the  authority  of  Aristotle.  The  real  question  is,  to 
what  extent  is  Paradise  Lost  an  illustration  of  the 
laws  of  Fine  Art,  and  these,  as  I  have  repeatedly  said 
in  the  course  of  my  lectures,  ought  to  be  declared, 
much  more  with  reference  to  the  fundamental  philo- 
sophical principles  discoverable  in  the  Poetics,  than 
with  reference  to  Aristotle's  technical  analysis. 

Taking  then  the  fundamental  reasoning  on  which 
Aristotle's  philosophical  ideas  of  poetry  are  based, 
every  great  poem  ought  to  fulfil  three  conditions  : 
(l)  It  must  be  an  imitation  of  the  Universal  in 
Nature ;  (2)  The  conception  of  the  Universal  in 
it  must  possess  an  individual  character ;  and  (3) 
The  opposite  qualities  which  go  to  make  up  this 
individual  character  must  be  'combined  in  complete 
harmony  of  expression.  As  to  the  first  point, 
there  are  four  great  poems  which  may  be  said  in 
a  very  special  manner  to  illustrate  the  imitation  of 
the  Universal :  The  Hiad,  The  j^neid,  The  Divine 
Comedy,  and  Paradise  Lost.  Of  these,  the  two 
latter  exhibit  a  higher  and  wider  conception  of 
Nature  than  the  two  former.  Homer,  indeed,  is 
unequalled  in  the  various  representation  of  human 
action  and  character;  but  the  supernatural  part  of 
his  conception — that  which  relates  to  the  divine 
order  and  government  of  Nature, — being  based  on 
polytheistic  fancy,  is  necessarily  at  variance  with  our 
ideas  of  "  the  probable."  Virgil,  inferior  to  Homer  in 
the  imitation  of  character,  is  unrivalled  in  the  stateli- 
ness  of  his  conception  of  human  society ;  but  as  his 
reflection  of  the  order  of  things  is  derived  from  the 


LECr.  VII  MILTON  333 

universal  supremacy  of  the  Roman  Empire,  which 
has  long  disappeared,  it  is  local  and  partial ;  nor  is  his 
representation  of  the  divine  government  of  the  world 
much  more  probable  than  Homer's. 

Dante  and  Milton,  on  the  other  hand,  present,  each 
in  their  own  way,  an  image  of  the  whole  constitution 
of  Nature,  physical,  moral,  and  social.  The  Divine 
Comedy  enables  the  imagination  to  pass  from  Hell, 
the  earth's  centre,  right  up,  through  the  nine  spheres 
recognised  by  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy,  to  the  empy- 
rean Heaven  which  is  the  seat  of  God  Himself;  and  it 
treats  on  the  way  of  every  kind  of  human  passion  and 
character,  and  of  their  relations  to  the  universal  order 
of  things.  Of  Paradise  Lost  Addison  very  well  says 
in  his  remarks  on  the  third  book:  "As  Milton's  genius 
was  wonderfully  turned  to  the  sublime,  his  subject  is 
the  noblest  that  could  have  entered  into  the  thoughts 
of  man.  Everything  that  is  truly  great  and  astonish- 
ing has  a  place  in  it.  The  whole  system  of  the  intel- 
lectual world  ;  the  chaos  and  the  creation ;  heaven, 
earth,  and  hell,  enter  into  the  constitution  of  the  poem." 

The  action  of  Paradise  Lost  relates  in  an  ideal  form 
the  whole  moral  history  of  the  human  race  between  the 
Fall  of  Man  and  his  redemption  by  the  Son  of  God. 
Its  universal  character  appears  in  the  poet's  invocation: 

Of  man's  first  disobedience  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  the  world  and  all  our  woe 
With  loss  of  Elden  till  one  happier  Man 
Restore  us,  and  regain  that  blissful  seat 
Sing  Heavenly  Muse. 


334  LAW  IN  TASTE 


He  here  announces  a  subject  far  more  extensive 
than  the  consequences  of  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  or  the 
foundation  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  and  he  elsewhere 
speaks  with  conscious  pride  of  the  greatness  of  the 
characters  who  support  his  action  : 

Never  since  created  man 
Met  such  embodied  force,  that,  named  with,  these 
Could  merit  more  than  that  small  infantry 
Warred  on  by  cranes,  though  all  the  giant  brood 
Of  Phlegra  with  the  heroic  race  were  joined 
That  fought  at  Thebes  or  Ilium,  on  each  side 
Mixed  with  auxiliar  gods. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  as  far  as  regards  the  first 
condition  of  a  great  poem,  Paradise  Lost,  in  its 
imitation  of  the  Universal,  stands  above  both  Hie 
Iliad  and  The  j^neid,  and  on  a  level  with  TTie  Divine 
Comedy. 

But  to  go  on  to  the  second  point ;  while  Poetry 
is  an  imitation  of  the  Universal,  the  universal 
truths  of  Nature  that  it  imitates  are  not  of  an 
abstract  nature,  like  the  universal  truths  of  Mathe- 
matics. Poetry  deals  with  truths  of  the  imagina- 
tion, and  answers  completely  to  the  definition  which 
Hamlet  gives  of  the  drama,  when  he  speaks  of  "  the 
purpose  of  playing,  whose  end  both  at  the  first  and 
now  was  and  is  to  hold  as  'twere  the  mirror  up  to 
Nature" — that  is,  in  the  Aristotelian  phrase,  to 
imitate  the  Universal — and  "  to  show  virtue  her  own 
feature,  scorn  her  own  image,  and  the  very  age 
and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and  pressure."  In 
other   words,    every   great    imitation    of    Nature   in 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  335 

poetry  will  reflect  in  itself  not  only  the  abstract  ideas 
of  tilings  in  the  mind  of  a  chance  individual,  but 
the  whole  conception  of  order,  of  liberty,  of  religion, 
philosophy,  and  learning,  which  makes  up  the  idea  of 
Nature  in  the  poet's  generation.  Poetry  imitates 
universal  Truth,  but  in  such  a  way  as  to  exhibit  that 
characteristic  idea  of  it  stamped  on  the  mind  of 
society  at  large  in  a  particular  place  and  time. 

There  is  no  better  way  of  realising  the  manner  in 
which  Paradise  Lost  shows  "  the  age  and  body  of 
the  time  his  form  and  pressure,"  than  by  comparing 
Milton's  conception  with  Dante's ;  for  if  there  be  one 
great  poem  that  more  than  another  furnishes  an  ideal 
image  of  contemporary  society,  it  is  The  Divine 
Comedy.  It  is  the  most  faithful  and  sublime  mirror 
that  exists  of  the  idea  of  Nature  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  main  character  of  this  idea  may  be  summed  up  in 
a  single  word,  Authority,  both  in  Church  and  State. 
First  of  all,  Dante's  conception  reposes  on  the  Unity 
of  Faith  as  defined  by  the  Church  in  the  scholastic 
philosophy,  and  more  particularly  in  the  Summa 
Theologica  of  S.  Thomas  Aquinas.  According  to  that 
philosophy  all  truths,  even  the  most  mysterious, 
could  be  understood,  or  at  least  believed,  if  they  were 
reasoned  on  syllogistically  in  the  right  way ;  and 
practically  reasoning  in  the  right  way  meant  squaring 
the  settled  dogmas  of  the  Church  with  the  infallible 
philosophy  of  Aristotle,  according  to  the  method  of 
Aquinas.  How  faithfully  Dante  adhered  to  this 
philosophical  principle,  in  his  poetical  fashion,  appears 
in  a  passage  like  the  following,  which  is  typical  of 


336  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  entire  imaginative  character  of  The  Divine 
Comedy:  "Let  this  be  always  a  lead  to  thy  feet, 
to  make  thee  move  as  slow  as  a  weary  man  towards 
the  *  yes '  and  *  no '  that  thou  seest  not.  Low  down 
is  he  among  the  fools  who  affirms  or  denies  without 
distinction ;  for  in  the  one  no  less  than  in  the  other 
case  the  current  opinion  swerves  in  a  false  direction, 
and  afterwards  the  desire  binds  the  understanding." 
Here  is  the  Scholastic  Philosophy  contained  poetically 
in  a  nutshell.  The  universal  idea  of  Nature  having 
been  formed  by  a  process  of  syllogistic  reasoning, 
starting  from  the  First  Cause  of  things,  and  being 
fortified  by  a  series  of  almost  mathematical  proofs, 
all  physical  phenomena  had  to  be  explained  on  a 
hypothesis  mainly  theological.  Hence  the  Ptolemaic 
theory  of  astronomy,  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  was 
regarded  as  unquestionably  true,  was  incorporated 
by  the  Church  as  an  article  of  faith,  with  the  result,  as 
we  know,  that  Galileo's  assertion  of  the  rotation  of  the 
earth  on  its  own  axis  was  imputed  to  him  for  heresy. 

Again,  the  theory  of  social  order  in  the  Middle 
Ages  rested,  like  the  unity  of  the  Faith,  on  a  hypo- 
thesis of  universal  political  Authority.  Europe  was 
organised  on  the  system  of  what  was  known  as  the 
Christian  Republic ;  that  is  to  say,  as  a  single  society 
under  the  joint  rule  of  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor, 
the  former  being  the  earthly  representative  and  Vicar 
of  Christ,  the  latter  the  head  of  the  Feudal  Order, 
and  heir,  through  the  intervention  of  the  Papacy,  of 
the  Roman  Emperors  of  the  West. 

Unreal  as  was  this  theory,  it  was  accepted,  like 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  337 

the  Ptolemaic  system,  by  the  highest  intellects  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  as  part  of  the  divine  order  of  the  Uni- 
verse. In  this  respect  The  Divine  Comedy  gave 
back  to  "the  age  and  body  of  the  time"  a  perfect 
reflection  of  its  "  form  and  pressure."  "  Man,"  says 
Dante  in  his  treatise  De  Monarchia,  "  has  need  of 
a  double  direction,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  Supreme 
Pontiff,  whose  office  is  to  bring  the  human  race  by 
the  light  of  Kevelation  to  Eternal  Life,  and  of  the 
Emperor,  who  must  direct  them  to  a  temporal  end  by 
the  teaching  of  philosophy."  And  the  philosophical 
principle  is  illustrated  with  the  most  admirable 
poetical  logic  in  the  Paradiso.  The  uninstructed 
reader,  for  example,  naturally  asks  why  such  a  char- 
acterless person  as  the  Emperor  Justinian  should 
have  been  exalted  by  Dante  into  Paradise ;  but  the 
poet  shows  that  the  logic  of  his  fiction  is  absolutely 
above  criticism.  Justinian  appears  in  the  Second 
Heaven  as  the  representative  both  of  theological 
orthodoxy  and  of  the  imperial  law  and  justice  typi- 
fied by  the  Roman  Empire.  He  undertakes  to  prove 
to  Dante  that  the  principle  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
is  something  superior  to  the  party  conception  of  it  by 
Ghibelline  and  Guelph ;  and,  in  order  to  establish  the 
point,  he  demonstrates  how  it  enters  into  the  scheme 
of  God's  Providence.  Beginning  with  the  far-off 
days  when — in  the  words  of  the  Paradiso — "  Pallas 
died  to  give  it  a  kingdom,"  he  traces  the  secular 
growth  and  expansion  of  the  Roman  Empire,  till  it 
arrives  at  its  destined  climax,  which  he  thus  describes : 
**  But  that  which  the  [holy]  ensign,  which  causes  me 


338  LAW  IN  TASTE 


to  speak,  had  done  of  old  and  was  about  to  do  through 
the  mortal  world  which  is  subject  to  it,  becomes  in 
appearance  little  and  obscure,  if  it  be  looked  at  in  the 
third  Caesar's  hand  with  clear  eye  and  pure  afifection  : 
for  the  living  justice,  which  inspires  me,  granted  to  it  by 
the  hand  of  him  of  whom  I  speak  the  glory  of  working 
vengeance  for  his  wrath."  In  less  enigmatic  language, 
the  Roman  Empire,  in  the  time  of  Tiberius  Caesar,  was 
a  necessary  instrument  in  the  work  of  the  Atonement. 
The  argument  leading  up  to  this  curious  conclusion  is 
given  more  fully  in  the  treatise  De  Monarchia ;  it  is 
as  follows  :  "If  the  Roman  Empire  had  not  been  of 
divine  right,  the  sin  of  Adam  could  not  have  been 
[humanly]  punished  in  Christ.  ...  If  Christ  had 
not  suffered  under  the  ordinary  judge,  his  penalty 
would  not  have  been  a  lawful  punishment ;  and  the 
ordinary  judge  could  only  be  one  having  jurisdiction 
over  the  whole  human  race.  And  Tiberius  Caesar, 
whose  representative  Pilate  was,  would  not  have  had 
this  jurisdiction,  unless  the  Roman  Empire  had  been 
of  right  divine." 

When  Dante  with  his  clear  vision  looked  abroad 
upon  the  world,  he  must  have  seen  how  ill  the  existing 
facts  of  society  fitted  in  with  this  theory  of  universal 
Authority — how  impossible,  for  example,  it  was  to 
harmonise  the  Feudal  System,  its  local  fiefs  and  its 
rights  of  hereditary  succession,  its  barbarous  customs, 
its  essential  anarchy,  with  his  civic  idea  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire.  But  living  as  he  did  at  a  time 
w^hen  no  one  thought  of  questioning  the  soundness 
of  the  scholastic  method  of  deductive  reasoning,  and 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  339 

when  all  the  great  nations  of  Europe  were  still  in 
the  chrysalis  stage,  he  regarded  the  constitution 
of  the  Christian  Republic  as  an  emanation  of  the 
Love  or  Will  of  God,  and  held  that  its  authority  was 
not  absolute  only  on  account  of  the  imperfection 
of  human  nature.  In  this  respect  he  argued  on 
the  same  principles  as  the  physical  philosophers 
of  his  age,  who,  when  they  observed  that  certain 
motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  were  inconsistent 
with  the  perfectly  circular  movement  of  the  spheres 
imagined  by  Ptolemy,  immediately  set  to  work  to 
make  the  observed  facts  square  with  their  system,  by 
inventing  what  was  called  the  theory  of  the  Epicycle. 
Precisely  in  the  same  way  Dante  in  Paradise  asks  King 
Charles  Martel  to  resolve  his  doubt  how  it  is  that,  if  all 
authority  proceeds  from  the  will  of  God,  good  rulers 
can  be  succeeded  by  bad.  The  King  explains  to  him 
that,  for  the  regulation  of  civil  society,  there  must  be 
a  diversity  of  functions ;  and  that  though  ideas  pro- 
ceed pure  from  the  mind  of  God,  yet,  entering  into 
the  habitation  of  different  mortal  bodies,  they  take 
various  directions ;  and  hence,  by  the  influences  of 
the  planets,  Fortune,  under  the  control  of  the  Divine 
Foresight,  provides  for  the  necessary  fluctuations  in 
human  afl'airs. 

Now  in  the  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  that  inter- 
vened between  the  writing  of  The  Divine,  Comedy  and 
the  publication  of  Paradise  Lost  the  entire  conception 
of  Nature  and  Society  had  altered.  It  no  longer 
rested  on  the  basis  of  authority.  The  Spiritual  Unity 
of  Christendom,  reposing  on   the   authority  of  the 


340  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 

Scholastic  Logic,  had  been  shattered  by  the  Reforma- 
tion. In  phice  of  the  political  unity  of  Europe,  in- 
volved in  the  theory  of  the  Christian  Republic,  had 
arisen  the  European  Equilibrium,  constituted  by  the 
rivalry  of  various  powerful  nations,  and  shadow- 
ing forth  the  first  faint  outlines  of  diplomacy 
and  the  foundations  of  International  Law.  The 
Ptolemaic  theory  of  the  Universe  had  been,  if  not 
displaced,  at  least  considerably  discredited  by  the 
reasoning  of  Copernicus  and  Galileo.  America  had 
been  discovered.  Printed  books  diffused  knowledge, 
only  to  be  obtained  in  Dante's  time  from  manuscripts 
or  oral  lectures.  This  knowledge,  instead  of  being 
confined  to  the  scholarly  few  who  were  able  to 
acquire  it  in  Latin,  was  propagated  in  the  vulgar 
tongues  of  the  different  nations ;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  philosophy  and  literature  of  the  ancients  were  no 
longer  viewed  through  the  scholastic  medium,  but 
were  scientifically  studied  in  the  original  languages. 

Hence  what  chiefly  characterises  the  seventeenth 
century  is  the  altered  attitude  of  the  mind  towards 
external  authority.  Milton's  age  is  penetrated  by 
doubts  as  to  the  truth  about  the  movements  of  the 
heavenly  bodies.  The  Ptolemaic  theory  is  not 
absolutely  rejected,  but  its  authority  is  impugned. 
Bacon,  for  example,  does  not  believe  in  the  diurnal 
motion  of  the  earth,  but  he  says :  "  With  no  better 
reason  is  it  afiirmed  that  all  the  heavenly  bodies 
move  in  perfect  circles ;  that  there  are  eccentrics 
and  epicycles  whereby  the  constancy  of  motions  in 
perfect   circles   is   preserved.    .    .    .    And   it   is   the 


LECT,  VII  MILTON  341 

absurdity  of  these  opinions  that  has  driven  men  to 
the  opinion  of  the  diurnal  motion  of  the  earth  ;  which 
I  am  convinced  is  most  false."  In  the  same  spirit 
Milton  makes  the  angel  Raphael  reply  to  the  ques- 
tions of  Adam  on  the  subject : 

To  ask  or  search  I  blame  thee  not,  for  heaven 
Is  as  the  book  of  God  before  thee  set, 
Wherein  to  read  his  wondrous  works,  and  learn 
His  seasons,  hours,  or  days,  or  months,  or  years. 
This  to  attain,  whether  heav'n  move  or  earth, 
Imports  not,  if  thou  reckon  right ;  the  rest 
From  man  or  angel  the  great  architect 
Did  wisely  to  conceal,  and  not  divulge 
His  secrets  to  be  scanned  by  them  who  ought 
Rather  admire ;  or  if  they  list  to  try 
Conjecture,  He  his  fabric  of  the  heavens 
Hath  left  to  their  disputes,  perhaps  to  move 
His  laughter  at  their  quaint  opinions  wide 
Hereafter,  when  they  come  to  model  heav'n 
And  calculate  the  stars,  how  they  wiU.  wield 
The  mighty  frame,  how  build,  unbuild,  contrive, 
To  save  appearances ;  how  gird  the  sphere 
With  centric  and  eccentric  scribbled  o'er 
Cycle  and  epicycle,  orb  in  orb. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  suspense  of 

judgment : 

Heav'n  is  for  thee  too  high 
To  know  what  passes  there  ;  be  lowly  wise. 
Think  only  what  concerns  thee  and  thy  being ; 
Dream  not  of  other  worlds. 

In  these  two  passages  we  find  an  expression  of  the 
spirit  of  the  Renaissance  as  regards  Science,  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages — the  inductive 
principle  of  reasoning,  which,  refusing  to  be  bound  by 


342  LAW  IN  TASTE 


a  priori  authority,  proceeds  to  its  conclusions  only 
by  way  of  observation  ;  and  the  humanist  tendency, 
which  inclines  to  concentrate  observation  on  man  and 
his  immediate  interests,  rather  than  on  those  meta- 
physical questions  which  absorbed  men's  intellect  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Nevertheless,  the  spirit  of  the 
Renaissance  is  not  the  predominant  spirit  in  Paradise 
Lost.     The  purpose  of  the  poet,  as  he  tells  us,  is 

To  assert  eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men. 

Hence,  like  Dante  in  The  Divine  Comedy,  he  still 
moves  in  a  theological  atmosphere ;  like  Dante  he 
feels  the  need  of  an  infallible  authority  to  set  forth 
the  true  conception  of  Nature ;  but  the  authority  on 
which  he  relies  is  not  that  of  the  Church,  formulated 
and  defined  in  the  philosophy  of  Aquinas,  but  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Holy  Scriptures  interpreted  by  his  own 

reason  : 

And  chiefly  thou,  0  Spirit,  that  dost  prefer 
Before  all  temples  the  upright  heart  and  pure. 
Instruct  me  for  thou  knowest.  .  .   . 

What  in  me  is  dark 
Illumine,  what  is  low  raise  and  support. 

To  sum  up,  therefore,  the  fundamental  difference 
between  TTie  Divine  Comedy  and  Pai^adise  Lost  in  a 
sentence  :  one  conception  of  Nature  is  that  evolved  by 
the  logic  of  the  Catholic  Schoolmen  out  of  the  opinions 
of  the  Christian  Fathers,  the  other  that  of  the  reason 
of  the  English  Independent,  exercising  itself  on  the 
text  of  the  Bible ;  "  the  age  and  body  of  the  time  " 
reflected  in  one  poem  is  the  authority  of  the  Latin 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  343 

Church,  in   the   other   the   liberty  of  the   Teutonic 
Reformation. 

I  pass  on  to  consider  the  third  essential  of  a  great 
poem,  as  it  is  illustrated  in  the  form  of  Paradise  Lost. 
Does  the  composition  satisfy  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds' 
definition  of  a  work  of  Fine  Art,  namely,  an  ideal 
organism,  made  up  of  contrary  parts  harmonised  into 
unity  in  such  a  manner  that  no  one  part  is  felt  to 
predominate  unduly  over  the  others  ?  Is  the  poet's 
conception  of  Nature  communicated  to  the  reader  in 
a  clear,  characteristic,  and  appropriate  form  of  ex- 
pression ?  In  deciding  this  point,  I  think  that  a  very 
false  impression  of  the  merit  of  Paradise  Lost  has 
been  created  by  Macaulay,  who  contrasts  the  style  of 
Milton  with  that  of  Dante,  without  attempting  to 
account  for  the  difference.  He  says :  "  The  poetry 
of  Milton  differs  from  that  of  Dante  as  the  hiero- 
glyphics of  Egypt  differed  from  the  picture-writing  of 
Mexico.  The  images  which  Dante  employs  speak  for 
themselves ;  they  stand  simply  for  what  they  are. 
Those  of  Milton  have  a  signification  which  is  often 
discernible  only  to  the  initiated.  Their  value  depends 
less  on  what  they  represent  than  on  what  they  re- 
motely suggest.  However  strange,  however  grotesque, 
may  be  the  appearance  which  Dante  undertakes  to 
describe,  he  never  shrinks  from  describing  it.  He 
gives  us  the  shape,  the  colour,  the  sound,  the  smell, 
the  taste ;  he  counts  the  numbers,  he  measures  the 
size.  His  similes  are  the  illustrations  of  a  traveller. 
Unlike  those  of  other  poets,  and  especially  of  Milton, 
they  are  introduced  in  a  plain  business-like  manner ; 


344  LAW  IN  TASTE 


not  for  the  sake  of  any  beauty  in  the  objects  from 
which  they  are  drawn,  not  for  the  sake  of  any  orna- 
ment which  they  may  impart  to  the  poem,  but  simply 
in  order  to  make  the  meaning  of  the  writer  as  clear  to 
the  reader  as  it  is  to  himself." 

Were  it  the  case  that  Milton's  form  of  expression 
did  not  make  his  conception  as  clear  to  the  intelligent 
reader  as  it  was  to  himself,  this  would  be  a  fatal 
flaw  in  the  art  of  his  poem.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  ideal  imagery  of  Paradise  Lost  is  as  clear  and 
distinct  as  that  of  The  Divine  Comedy;  only  it  is 
employed  in  a  different  way  and  for  a  different  pur- 
pose. So  far  from  its  being  true  that  in  Dante — as 
Macaulay  says — "the  images  speak  for  themselves 
and  stand  for  what  they  are,"  the  Italian  poet  tells 
us  over  and  over  again  that  he  merely  makes  use  of 
sensible  images  as  a  necessary  mode  of  conveying 
spiritual  truths  to  the  weakness  of  human  understand- 
ing. The  great  distinctness  with  which  he  describes 
external  objects  is  due  to  his  desire  to  give,  by  means 
of  an  allegorical  symbol,  a  clear  idea  of  the  unseen 
world.  Milton,  on  the  other  hand,  employs  images 
that  do  "  speak  for  themselves  and  stand  for  what 
they  are."  His  poem  describes  a  real  action,  and 
though  this  action — the  fall  of  the  Rebel  angels,  the 
temptation  of  Man,  and  the  loss  of  Eden — passes  in  a 
supernatural  sphere,  it  is  related  in  such  a  way  as 
to  give  a  probable  account  of  events  that  actually 
happened  in  that  sphere. 

The  form  of  The  Divine  Comedy  is  the  most  com- 
pletely original  that  is  found  in  the  whole  range  of 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  345 

j^oetry.  It  is  a  narrative  of  the  poet's  own  experience 
in  the  unseen  world,  an  account  of  all  that  he  saw 
and  heard  in  his  journey  through  Hell,  Purgatory,  and 
Paradise ;  and,  as  Macaulay  justly  says,  he  paints 
every  object  that  he  met  with  extraordinary  distinct- 
ness ;  but  this  by  the  very  conditions  of  his  art 
he  was  bound  to  do,  in  order  to  make  his  fiction 
credible  to  his  hearers.  Moreover,  it  was  easier  for 
him  than  for  Milton  to  make  the  composition  of  his 
whole  poem  pictorial,  in  proportion  as  the  universal 
idea  of  Nature  and  Society  in  the  Middle  Ages — the 
Ptolemaic  scheme  of  the  celestial  spheres,  the  syllo- 
gisms of  the  Scholastic  Logic,  the  dual  government 
of  the  Christian  Republic — was  more  limited  and 
symmetrical  than  the  corresponding  idea  of  the  Uni- 
versal in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  framework 
of  Dante's  ideal  conception  was  provided  for  him  by 
universal  authority  and  universal  belief;  all  that  he 
had  to  do  was  to  communicate  poetic  life  and  colour 
from  his  own  imagination  to  the  ready-made  organic 
form.  This,  it  is  needless  to  say,  he  did  with  un- 
equalled genius. 

Milton,  on  the  contrary,  chose  to  present  his 
materials  to  the  reader  in  the  form  of  a  regular  epic. 
He  had  to  relate  in  his  poem  not  his  own  experience 
but  that  of  others — of  Man,  of  the  Fallen  Angels,  of 
the  Son  of  God.  Instead  of  starting,  like  Dante,  on 
his  journey  through  the  unseen  world  from  Hell,  the 
centre  of  the  fixed  and  motionless  Earth,  and  working 
up  his  way  by  symmetrical  stages  to  the  Empyrean 
Heaven,  Milton  calls  on  the  Spirit  of  God  to  enable 


346  LAW  IN  TASTE 


him  to  describe  the  external  causes  and  events  that 
led  to  the  loss  of  Eden  : 

Say,  first, — for  Heaven  hides  nothing  from  thy  sight 
Nor  the  deep  tract  of  Hell — say  first  what  cause 
Moved  our  grand  Parents  in  that  happy  state, 
Favoured  of  Heaven  so  highly,  to  fall  off 
From  their  Creator,  and  transgress  his  will, 
For  one  restraint,  lords  of  the  world  beside  ? 

In  execution  of  this  purpose,  he  begins  his  narra- 
tive, just  as  Homer  does  in  the  Odyssey  and  Virgil  in 
the  jEneid,  at  a  point  midway  in  the  action  described, 
and  afterwards,  in  the  body  of  the  poem,  employs — also 
in  the  Homeric  and  Virgilian  manner — one  of  the  lead- 
ing characters  to  relate  the  preceding  events  necessary 
for  the  full  comprehension  of  the  action  as  a  whole. 
The  action  of  Paradise  Lost  practically  opens  with 
the  departure  of  Satan  from  Hell  to  devise  mischief 
against  God's  recently  created  universe,  and  whoever 
would  form  a  clear  conception  of  Milton's  idea  of 
Nature  must  take  the  trouble  to  follow,  as  on  a  map, 
the  flight  of  the  person  whom  Dryden  rightly  calls 
the  hero  of  the  poem,  from  his  first  encounter  with 
Sin  and  Death,  down  to  the  moment  when  he  makes 
his  entrance  into  Eden.  Macaulay,  I  should  imagine, 
had  never  attempted  to  track  the  imagination  of  the 
poet  with  this  minuteness,  but  if  the  reader  studies 
Paradise  Lost  in  the  excellent  edition  of  Professor 
Masson,  he  will  find  that  Milton's  ideal  topography 
is  quite  as  clear  as  Dante's.  Like  Dante,  Milton 
assumes  the  Ptolemaic  scheme  of  the  heavens  as 
the  basis  of  his  poetic  description  ;  but  as,  by  the 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  347 

epic  form  of  his  poem,  he  is  bound  to  view  it  from 
without,  and  to  show  the  positions  of  Hell,  of  Chaos, 
and  of  the  Empyrean,  relatively  to  the  universe, 
the  imagery  seems  vaster  and  less  symmetrical  than 
that  of  Tlie  Divine  Comedy.  This  is  just  as  it  should 
be.  Compared  with  Dante's  upward  movement  into 
Paradise,  the  wanderings  of  Milton's  Satan  outside 
the  world  of  Creation,  and  his  downward  plunge  to 
the  earth  through  the  spheres  of  the  fixed  stars  and 
the  planets,  afford  an  exact  reflection  of  the  progress 
of  astronomical  knowledge  between  the  age  of  the 
Schoolmen  and  the  age  of  Bacon. 

But  though  Milton  triumphantly  overcomes  the 
first  difiiculty  with  which  he  was  confronted,  and  pre- 
sents to  the  reader  a  clear  pictorial  idea  of  Nature  as 
a  whole,  he  has  still  to  solve  the  problem  how  to 
harmonise  the  action,  which  is  his  subject,  with  the 
epic  form  of  poetical  expression.  This  is  an  obstacle 
which  no  Christian  poet,  who  attempts  a  regular  epic, 
can  avoid.  Tasso,  in  his  Treatise  07i  the  Structure  of 
Epic  Poet't^,  very  frankly  explains  the  nature  of  the 
task.  The  epic  poet,  he  says,  has  to  take  into  account 
two  contrary  conditions :  first,  that  the  reason  of  the 
reader  postulates  in  the  poetical  narrative  the  appear- 
ance of  probable  truth  ;  and  secondly,  that  the  im- 
agination requires  the  presence  of  the  marvellous,  the 
supernatural,  and  all  the  embellishments  and  fictions 
with  which  this  form  of  poetry  is  associated.  By  the 
epic  poets  of  Greece  and  Rome  the  difficulty  was  not 
felt,  both  because  they  took  for  their  subjects  legendary 
events,  which  were  supposed  to  have  actually  occurred, 


348  LAW  IN  TASTE 


thus  securing  for  their  conceptions  a  basis  of  prob- 
ability, and  also  because  they  could  please  the 
imagination  with  the  appearance  in  their  stories  of 
the  numerous  gods  and  goddesses  who  were  believed 
to  intervene  in  the  government  of  the  world.  When 
polytheism  disappeared  with  the  advent  of  Christianity, 
this  supernatural  machinery  was  no  longer  available 
for  the  purposes  of  the  poet.  Dante  indeed,  the  first 
great  Christian  poet  in  the  vulgar  tongues  of  modern 
Europe,  did  not  feel  the  want  of  it.  The  action  which 
he  described  in  Tlie  Divine  Comedy  was  his  own  ex- 
perience in  Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Paradise,  and  when, 
by  the  force  of  his  genius,  he  had  made  his  narrative 
seem  probable  to  his  hearers,  his  difficulties  of  inven- 
tion were  at  an  end,  because  his  report  of  what  he  saw 
and  heard  was  marvellous  and  supernatural  in  itself. 

But  Tasso,  who,  in  his  Jerusalem  Delivered, 
attempted  to  preserve  the  traditional  epic  form  of 
Homer  and  Virgil,  was  forced  to  deal  with  the  standing 
difficulty,  nor  can  it  be  said  that  he  was  quite  success- 
ful in  overcoming  it.  He  sought  to  combine  history 
with  romance.  He  chose  a  historical  subject,  and 
thereby  secured  for  his  poem  a  basis  of  belief  in  the 
reader's  mind ;  but  when  he  came  to  elevate  his 
historical  truth  by  means  of  supernatural  machinery, 
invention  failed  him.  Allowing  that  it  was  not  per- 
missible for  a  Christian  poet  to  introduce  into  his 
work  Pagan  deities,  he  contended  that  he  might  still 
enliven  his  narrative  with  the  persons  of  diabolical 
agents,  with  magical  enchantments,  and  with  all  the 
fictions  of  romance  that  Ariosto  had  introduced  into 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  349 

the  Orlando  Furioso.  But  in  this  experiment  Tasso, 
if  I  may  say  so,  fell  between  two  poetical  stools.  His 
historical  and  romantic  elements  are  not  harmonised. 
The  real  interest  of  the  Jerusalem  lies  in  the  loves  of 
Rinaldo  and  Armida,  in  the  wanderings  of  Erminia 
among  the  shepherds,  and  in  the  beauty  of  the 
various  descriptions.  Admirable  in  themselves,  these 
episodes,  as  the  reader  very  clearly  perceives,  are  not 
essentially  connected  with  the  main  action  of  the 
deliverance  of  Jerusalem.  The  romantic  parts  have 
no  real  relation  to  the  historical  whole. 

If  a  poet  of  Tasso's  genius  failed  to  conquer  the 
difficulties  inherent  in  the  epic  treatment  of  a  secular 
historical  subject,  failure  was  ten  times  more  inevitable 
in  the  case  of  the  lesser  artists  who  devoted  their 
ejBforts  to  sacred  themes.  For  here  it  was  evident  that 
no  element  of  romance  could  be  allowed  to  colour  the 
severe  outlines  of  historic  Scriptural  truth  ;  and  though 
several  French  poets  in  the  seventeenth  century 
ventured  on  the  experiment,  their  attempts  to  raise 
their  subject  into  the  higher  poetical  atmosphere  were 
both  painful  and  grotesque.  It  is  little  wonder  that 
Boileau,  judging  from  these  performances,  and  ap- 
parently without  knowledge  of  Milton's  great  poem, 
should  have  pronounced  the  task  of  writing  an  epic  on 
a  sacred  subject  to  be  an  artistic  impossibility. 

Such  poetical  failures  and  such  a  critical  judgment 
give  us  an  idea  of  the  sublime  art  employed  in  the 
construction  of  Paradise  Lost.  From  the  invocation 
with  which  the  poem  opens,  down  to  the  noble 
melancholy  of  the  last  line — "  Through  Eden  took 


350  LAW  IN  TASTE 


their  solitary  way," — the  unity  of  the  ideal  organism 
is  absolute  and  blameless.  Yet  in  the  entire  narrative 
there  is  scarcely  a  detail  that  has  not  some  warrant 
either  in  the  text  of  Scripture  or  in  sacred  legend — 
the  account  of  the  Creation,  for  example,  and  of  the 
Fall  is  merely  an  amplification  of  the  Bible  narrative, 
and  the  history  of  the  fall  of  the  Angels  is  founded  on 
immemorial  tradition — so  that  Aristotle's  requirement 
of  a  basis  of  probability  is  fully  satisfied.  At  the 
same  time  the  scenes  and  incidents  described  are  in 
themselves  so  vast  and  marvellous,  that  the  imagin- 
ation, transported  beyond  the  range  of  experience, 
moves  with  delight  amid  the  realities  of  a  supernatural 
sphere.  The  same  is  true  of  the  characters  who  con- 
duct the  action  to  its  destined  end.  All  but  two  are 
represented  on  a  colossal  scale,  yet  with  attributes 
and  qualities  which  Scripture  authority  and  human 
experience  render  easy  of  conception.  No  divine, 
angelic,  or  diabolic  personage  is  introduced  whose 
name  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Bible  or  the  Apocrypha. 
And  Titanic  as  the  imagination  of  character  is,  it  is 
so  dramatically  conceived,  so  finely  graduated,  so  ex- 
quisitely rendered,  that  we  never  feel  ourselves  chilled 
by  an  atmosphere  of  allegory  and  abstraction.  Pity 
and  Fear  are  always  at  work.  Who  can  read  without 
profound  emotion  the  description  of  Satan  about  to 
address  the  host  of  fallen  spirits  whom  he  had  led  to 
their  doom  ? 

Thrice  he  assayed,  and  thrice,  in  spite  of  scorn, 
Tears  such  as  angels  weep,  burst  forth ;  at  last 
Words  interwove  with  sighs  found  out  their  way. 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  351 

Or  what  poetical  rendering  of  despair  ever  equalled  in 
tragic  intensity  the  passion  of  the  Devil  as  uttered  in 
his  speech  to  the  Sun,  or  described  in  the  feelings 
with  which  he  gazes  on  the  happiness  of  Adam  and 
Eve? 

Again,  we  have  to  admire  in  Paradise  Lost  the 
harmony  that  is  effected  between  the  spirit  of  the 
whole  conception  and  the  form  in  which  it  is  ex- 
pressed. The  spirit  of  the  poem  is  Christian,  but  the 
form  is  classical,  and  therefore  Pagan,  so  that  we  at 
once  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  that  great 
opposition  of  thought  which,  from  very  early  days, 
had  divided  the  Christian  Church.  TertuUian  ruth- 
lessly condemned  the  study  of  all  Pagan  literature ; 
Gregory  the  First  used  his  authority  to  drive  Virgil 
and  Horace  out  of  the  schools ;  but  human  nature 
was  too  strong  for  them.  A  compromise  was  effected. 
The  Pagan  poets  were  in  a  way  converted  and 
Christianised — very  much  in  the  same  manner  as  many 
of  the  Greek  myths  were  transmuted  into  saintly 
legends, — and  with  so  much  success,  that  in  the  Middle 
Ages  Virgil,  Ovid,  and  Statins  were  accepted  as 
established  text -books  in  the  course  of  Christian 
rhetoric.  In  consequence  of  this  compromise  the 
stories  of  Pagan  mythology  never  gave  Dante  any 
trouble.  His  verse  is  studded  with  mythological 
allusions,  rendered  familiar  to  him  by  his  scholastic 
education.  He  speaks  of  Icarus,  and  Glaucus,  and 
Alcides,  and  the  daughter  of  Latona,  as  if  they  were 
persons  no  less  real  than  Belisarius,  or  Justinian,  or 
the   reigning  Pope  :  all  of  them  provide  him  with 


352  LAW  IN  TASTE 


imagery  which  helps  to  illustrate  some  spiritual  truth 
in  the  constitution  of  the  unseen  world. 

But  Milton,  like  Luther,  and  many  of  the  leaders 
of  the  Reformation,  judged  of  Pagan  literature  with 
something  of  the  austere  spirit  of  Tertullian.  You 
will  all  remember  the  famous  passage  in  Paradise 
Regained  where  Satan  tempts  the  Saviour  with  the 
spectacle  of  the  art,  poetry,  and  philosophy  of  Athens. 
Not  so  familiar,  but  quite  as  characteristic,  is  the 
Saviour's  reply : 

If  I  would  delight  my  private  hours 
With  music  or  with  poem,  where  so  soon 
As  in  our  native  language  can  I  find 
That  solace  ?     All  our  Law  and  Story  strewed 
With  hymns,  our  Psalms  with  artful  terms  inscribed, 
Our  Hebrew  songs  and  harps,  in  Babylon 
That  pleased  so  well  our  victor's  ear,  declare 
That  rather  Greece  from  us  these  arts  derived — 
111  imitated  while  they  loudest  sing 
The  vices  of  their  deities,  and  their  own, 
In  fable,  hymn,  or  song,  so  personating 
Their  gods  ridiculous,  and  themselves  past  shame. 

Strange,  indeed,  it  is  to  think  that  these  lines 
should  have  been  written  by  one  who  had  deliber- 
ately adapted  the  matter  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  to 
the  requirements  of  Hellenic  form,  who,  in  the  inmost 
nature  of  his  genius,  as  illustrated  by  the  regular 
structure  of  his  poem,  by  the  Homeric  picturesque- 
ness  of  his  similes,  by  the  Virgilian  music  in  the  roll 
of  his  proper  names,  and  by  the  Latin  turn  of  his 
diction,  shows  himself  steeped  in  classic  learning, 
penetrated  with  the  spirit   and  character  of  classic 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  353 

poetry  !  Nevertheless,  there  is  no  contradiction  in  his 
style.  Paradise  Lost  is  free  from  every  trace  of  cold 
formal  imitation.  The  form  of  the  poem  is  essenti- 
ally original,  and  seems  to  spring  spontaneously  out 
of  the  central  design  ;  and  the  sublime  art  of  Milton 
is  nowhere  more  conspicuous  than  in  the  skill  with 
which  he  turns  the  mythological  imagery  of  a  religion 
recognised  as  false  to  the  illustration  and  embellish- 
ment of  a  Christian  theme. 

Let  me  remind  you  of  a  very  few  instances  in 
which  classical  precedents  have  inspired  him  with 
the  starting-point  for  his  grandest  imagery.  The 
Catalogue  of  the  Ships  in  the  Iliad  evidently  sug- 
gested the  magnificent  enumeration  of  the  false  gods 
of  the  Gentiles  in  Paradise  Lost.  The  tradition  of 
the  Church  had  long  sanctioned  the  dim  belief  that 
the  gods  of  the  Greeks  were  devils,  but  I  believe 
Milton  was  the  first  to  appropriate  the  idea  for 
poetical  purposes,  and  to  identify  the  Gentile  deities 
with  the  fallen  angels  : 

Godlike  Shapes,  and  Forms 
Excelling  human  ;  princely  Dignities  ; 
And  Powers  that  erst  in  Heaven  sat  on  thrones. 
Though  of  their  names  in  Heavenly  records  now 
Be  no  memorial,  blotted  out  and  rased 
By  their  rebellion  from  the  Books  of  Life. 

On  this  principle  Mammon,  the  chief  architect  of 
Hell,  is  identified  with  Vulcan  ;  but  at  the  same  time 
the  errors  of  the  Pagan  mythology  are  most  ingeni- 
ously and  poetically  corrected  : 

2a 


354  LAW  INV.STE 


111  Ausonian  land 
Men  called  him  Mulcibcr  ;  and  how  he  fell 
From  Heaven  they  fabled,  thrown  by  angry  Jove 
Sheer  o'er  the  crystal  battlements  :  from  morn 
To  noon  he  fell,  from  noon  to  dewy  eve, 
A  summer's  day,  and  with  the  setting  sun 
Dropt  from  the  zenith,  like  a  falling  star, 
On  Lemnos,  the  JEgsesiU  isle.     Thus  they  relate, 
Erring  ;  for  he  with  this  rebellious  rout 
Fell  long  before  ;  nor  aught  availed  him  now 
To  have  built  in  Heaven  high  towers ;  nor  did  he  scape 
By  all  his  engines,  but  was  headlong  sent, 
With  his  industrious  crew,  to  work  in  Hell. 

Ovid's  ingenious  but  conceited  description  of  Nar- 
cissus suggested  to  Milton  Eve's  most  exquisite,  most 
natural,  relation  of  her  feelings  when  she  first  saw  her 
own  reflection  in  the  water.  When  Satan  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden  stands  confronted  with  the  angel 
Gabriel,  the  situation  reminds  the  poet  of  Jupiter  in 
the  j^neid,  weighing  in  the  scales  the  fates  of  ^neas 
and  Turnus.  This  raises  in  his  mind  the  sublime 
image  of  the  Almighty  hanging  forth  in  heaven 

The  golden  scales  yet  seen 
Betwixt  Astrsea  and  the  Scorpion  sign ; 

but  since,  as  Bishop  Newton  justly  points  out,  it 
would  have  been  highly  improper  to  represent  Omni- 
science as  ignorant  of  the  event,  the  poet  feigns  that 
the  action  was  intended  to  warn  Satan  of  the  fruit- 
lessness  of  strife,  by  showing  him  the  lightness  of  his 
own  weight  in  the  balance.  And  yet  once  more,  the 
mixture  of  the  Christian  and  classical  imagery  may 


MILTON 


355 


be  illustrated  by  the  sublime  invocation  at  tbe  open- 
ing of  Book  VII. : 

Still  govern  thou  my  song, 
Urania,  and  fit  audience  find,  though  few. 
But  drive  far  off  the  barbarous  dissonance 
Of  Bacchus  and  his  revellers,  the  race 
Of  that  wild  rout  that  tore  the  Thracian  bard 
In  Rhodope,  where  woods  and  rocks  had  ears 
To  raptvu-e,  till  the  savage  clamour  drowned 
Both  harp  and  voice ;  nor  could  the  Muse  defend 
Her  son.      So  fail  not  thou  Avho  thee  implores  ; 
For  thou  art  heavenly,  she  an  empty  dream. 

I  am  far  from  contending  that  Milton  is  invariably 
successful  in  blending  the  opposing  elements  of  which 
his  poem  consists,  that  the  form  of  Paradise  Lost  is 
always  appropriate  to  the  matter,  the  Christian  spirit 
never  out  of  harmony  with  the  Pagan  model.  Parts 
of  the  narrative  are  undoubtedly  dry  and  barren  ;  the 
same  may  be  said  of  every  long  poem,  and  notably  of 
Tlie  Divine  Comedy.  Many  of  the  details  are  out  of 
place.  In  my  opinion  almost  the  whole  of  the  Sixth 
Book,  in  which  Milton,  desiring  to  supply  the 
obvious  deficiency  of  incident  in  his  subject,  gives, 
through  the  mouth  of  Raphael,  a  very  particular 
account  of  the  War  in  Heaven,  might  have  been 
omitted  with  advantage.  Frequent  conceits,  puns,  and 
satirical  allusions,  degrade  the  style  in  places  below 
its  usual  lofty  level ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  Latin 
idioms,  by  means  of  which  the  diction  is  exalted,  are 
sometimes  pushed  beyond  the  point  at  which  the 
sublime  marches  with  a  less  admirable  quality.  But 
on  the  whole  I  should  be  prepared  to  maintain  with 


356  LAW  IN  TASTE 


confidence  that,  having  regard  to  the  unity  and 
grandeur  of  the  ideal  scheme,  the  subordination  of 
the  parts  to  the  whole,  and  the  perfection  of  the 
workmanship,  Paradise  Lost  satisfies  more  thoroughly 
than  any  epic  poem  of  equal  scope  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds's  definition  of  Fine  Art. 

Nor  is  the  grandeur  of  Milton's  art  conspicuous 
only  in  its  result ;  it  is  also  to  be  measured  by  the 
greatness  of  the  mental  processes  which  produced  it. 
Paradise  Lost,  Paradise  Regained,  and  Samson 
Agonistes  were  Milton's  latest  works ;  like  Chaucer's 
Canterbury  Tales,  like  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  and 
King  Lear,  they  were  the  offspring  of  a  period  when 
all  his  poetical  faculties  had  been  trained  by  long 
experience  to  work  together.  Brought  into  being  in 
the  midst  of  blindness,  poverty,  political  and  social 
disgrace,  Paradise  Lost  gains  in  scope  and  grandeur 
by  the  adverse  circumstances  of  its  gestation.  We 
see  in  its  composition  how  the  elements  have  been 
separated,  sifted,  recombined.  As  late  as  1639  the 
evidence  shows  that  Milton  was  meditating  a  quite 
different  subject,  a  romantic  one,  the  history  of  King 
Arthur,  which,  it  is  evident,  could  never  have 
harmonised  with  the  classic  form  he  would  certainly 
have  attempted  to  give  it.  When,  after  the  agony 
of  the  Civil  War,  his  mind  begins  to  weigh  the  pos- 
sibilities of  a  Scriptural  subject,  his  imagination 
stands  doubtful  in  the  choice  of  the  necessary  form. 
At  first  the  drama  suggests  itself ;  and  we  know  that 
Satan's  address  to  the  sun  was  composed  for  a  work 
fashioned  on  the  lines  of  the  old  Miracle  Plays,  an 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  357 

antiquated  mould  no  longer  suited  to  the  character  of 
the  age.  Finally,  however,  the  poet  reverts  to  the  epic 
form,  and  the  artistic  judgment  being  now  right,  all 
the  materials  begin  to  settle  themselves  into  their 
proper  places ;  the  recollections  of  the  old  romantic 
Arthurian  theme  are  employed  to  embellish  the 
narrative  with  simile  and  allusion ;  the  stern  heart  of 
Puritanism  circulates  its  life-blood  through  all  the 
veins  and  arteries  of  the  poetic  organism. 

From  all  this  it  follows  that  both  in  its  conception 
and  its  expression  Paradise  Lost  is  a  monument 
illustrating,  in  the  highest  form,  not  only  the  universal 
laws  of  poetry,  but  the  operation  of  the  English  law  of 
taste.  In  my  last  lecture  I  dwelt  on  the  manner  in 
which  that  law  is  illustrated  in  the  poetry  of  Chaucer. 
I  showed  how  the  task  of  the  great  founder  of  our 
poetry  lay  in  harmonising  the  genius  of  the  Saxon  and 
Norman-French  languages,  and  how  he  expanded  the 
insular  religious  spirit  of  Saxon  poetry  by  uniting  it 
with  the  more  secular  tendencies  of  art  and  science  then 
manifesting  themselves  on  the  Continent  of  Europe,  and 
particularly  in  Italy.  Milton  carried  on  the  national 
tradition ;  but  the  problem  he  had  to  solve  in  poetry 
was  of  a  different  order.  His  destiny  was  to  reconcile 
the  genius  of  Humanism  with  the  temper  of  the 
Reformation. 

For  nearly  a  century  before  the  appearance  of 
Paradise  Lost  two  separate  streams  of  thought  had 
been  running  side  by  side  in  the  English  mind,  as 
represented  in  the  Universities,  without  any  attempt 
being  made  to  blend  them  into  unity.     One  was  the 


358  LAW  IN  TASTE 


theology  of  the  Reformation,  whether  represented  by 
Luther,  Calvin,  or  Arminius ;  the  other  was  the  imita- 
tion of  classical  forms,  images,  and  idioms,  encouraged 
by  the  Renaissance.  The  classical  form  had  been 
made  the  vehicle  for  the  Reformed  theology,  and  the 
artistic  result  was  grotesque  enough.  What  could  be 
more  incongruous  than  to  turn  the  serene  beauty  of 
the  idylls  of  Theocritus  into  an  allegorical  weapon  of 
Genevan  divinity  ?  Yet  this  was  what  had  been  done 
by  Spenser  in  his  Shepherd's  Calendar.  In  Milton's 
youth  the  Humanist  spirit  had  so  much  prevailed  at 
Cambridge  over  the  acrid  temper  of  sectarianism,  that 
his  early  poems,  L Allegro,  II  Penseroso,  and  Comus, 
are  inspired  with  an  air  of  absolute  classical  repose, 
and  even  in  Lycidas  the  note  of  theological  contro- 
versy only  faintly  disturbs  the  pastoral  calm  of  the 
elegiac  style.  Perhaps  some  epicures  of  art  may  even 
regret  the  exchange  of  outlines  so  sweet  and  chaste 
for  the  more  complex  harmonies  of  Milton's  later 
compositions.  But  if,  as  at  one  time  seemed  probable, 
he  had  been  sacrificed  to  the  resentments  of  the 
Restoration,  the  world,  while  it  would  have  had  cause 
to  deplore  the  loss  of  perhaps  the  most  charming  lyric 
poet  in  the  English  language,  would  have  had  no 
suspicion  that  there  had  perished  in  that  imagination 
an  epic  poem  of  the  same  class  as  the  Iliad  and  The 
Divine  Comedy.  The  long  fallow  period,  apparently 
so  barren  in  poetical  inspiration,  devoted  wholly  to 
controversy,  pamphleteering,  and  politics,  was  in 
reality  needed  to  bring  the  fanciful  and  abstract 
imagination  of  the  recluse  poet  into  touch  with  the 


LECT.  VII  MILTON  359 

realities  of  the  world  about  him.  Plunging  into  the 
civil  conflict  equipped  with  his  admirable  artistic 
sense  of  order  and  proportion,  a  strong  perception  of 
actuality  enabled  him  to  give  back  an  image  of  the 
war  of  life  in  an  ideal  form.  The  product  of  this  strife 
of  contraries  was  Paradise  Lost. 

In  Paradise  Lost  are  reflected  all  the  contrary  in- 
tellectual tendencies  of  the  age — the  energy  of  Hebraic 
faith,  the  aspirations  of  Hellenic  art  and  philosophy, 
the  romance  of  mediaeval  chivalry ;  but  all  these  op- 
posing elements  are  fused  by  a  supreme  judgment  into 
a  unity  of  conception  which  was  beyond  the  reach  of 
Spenser  and  Sidney.  Verse,  composed  with  the  severe 
regularity  of  Sophocles,  seems  to  swell  into  the  sublime 
enthusiasm  of  the  Psalms  of  David,  or  to  breathe  the 
stem  ardours  of  the  trumpets  of  Dunbar.  In  the 
commerce  between  the  genius  of  the  poet  and  his  age 
there  is  something  that  resembles  the  joint  action  that 
produces  the  forms  of  the  clouds,  when  the  sun  draws 
up  the  crude  vapours  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth  and 
fashions  them  into  a  thousand  exquisite  shapes  of 
aerial  architecture.  The  characteristics  of  the  style 
of  Paradise  Lost  can  indeed  be  only  fitly  described 
by  the  word  Miltonic,  but  through  the  inspiration 
of  Milton  we  feel  the  presence  of  the  life,  the  char- 
acter, and  the  history,  of  the  English  People. 


VIII 

POPE 

In  my  earlier  lectures  on  Law  in  Taste  I  have 
endeavoured  to  arrive  at  my  conclusions  inductively 
and  historically.  Starting  with  the  laws  which  govern 
the  art  of  Poetry  as  a  whole,  and  which  are  very 
clearly  laid  down  in  Aristotle's  Poetics,  we  have  seen 
that  the  first  and  greatest  of  these  is  that  which  defines 
Poetry  to  be  the  imitation  of  the  Universal.  I  have 
shown  that  the  second,  and  hardly  less  important,  law 
of  Poetry  is  the  Law  of  National  Character,  whereby  the 
Universal  in  nature  is  presented  to  the  mind  in  such 
a  particular  form  as  the  genius  and  circumstances  of 
each  nation  require.  In  my  two  last  lectures  I 
attempted  successively  to  draw  out  the  law  of 
character  in  English  Poetry  by  reference  to  the 
practice  of  Chaucer,  the  father  of  our  poetry,  and  to 
that  of  Milton,  who,  in  one  branch  of  the  art,  is 
acknowledged  by  all  competent  critics  to  stand  in  the 
same  rank  as  Homer.  In  neither  of  these  poets  do 
we  find  any  distinct  declaration  of  the  artistic  principles 
on  which  they  proceeded ;  the  operation  of  the  law  of 
national  character  has  to  be  inferred  from  their  work. 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  361 

I  would  now  ask  you  to  direct  your  attention  to 
the  genius  of  a  poet  who  stands  on  a  different  foot- 
ing from  Chaucer  and  Milton,  who  consciously  and 
deliberately  schooled  his  imagination  by  a  definite 
critical  standard,  and  who  has  defined  in  the  clearest 
possible  manner  what  that  standard  was.  I  need 
hardly  say  that  I  refer  to  Alexander  Pope,  who,  as 
you  all  know,  proclaimed  the  end  of  his  art  to  be 
correctness,  and  who  embodied  what  he  believed  to  be 
the  law  of  poetical  taste  in  his  Essay  on  Criticism. 

Nothing  in  criticism  is  more  valuable  than  the 
attempts  of  eminent  artists,  who,  if  I  may  use  a  some- 
what familiar  metaphor,  "  know  the  ropes  "  of  their 
art,  to  think  out  the  first  principles  of  procedure,  and 
though  it  does  not  follow  either  that  Pope's  practice  con- 
formed to  the  highest  law  of  English  Poetry,  or  that 
his  declaration  of  that  law  was  entirely  accurate,  his 
opinions  are  at  least  deserving  of  the  highest  respect 
and  consideration.  This  consideration,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  has  not  always  been  granted  to  it.  Critics,  who 
ought  to  have  known  better,  have  decried  the  Essay 
on  Criticism.  De  Quincey,  for  example,  who,  him- 
self only  a  prose  writer,  should  have  felt  that  he 
might  appreciate  imperfectly  the  motives  of  a  writer 
in  verse,  arrogantly  sneers  at  it  as  a  collection  of 
maxims,  "the  most  mouldy  with  which  criticism  has 
baited  its  rat-traps."  It  has  been  also  disparaged  by 
poets  like  Bowles,  because  it  gives  prominence  to  a 
view  of  poetry  with  which  they  have  little  sympathy, 
and  which  they  hold  to  be  petty,  restricted,  and  even, 
in  a  sense,  "  unpoetical."     The  position  of  these  men 


362  LAW  IN  TASTE 


is  more  intelligible  than  that  of  De  Quincey ;  but 
their  depreciation  of  Pope's  poetry  is  discounted  by 
their  obvious  incapacity  to  understand  the  peculiar 
conditions  which  gave  rise  to  the  declaration  of  law 
contained  in  the  Essay  on  Criticism.  I  will,  there- 
fore, ask  you  first  to  consider  what  is  the  law  of 
poetical  conception  declared  by  Pope ;  then,  what  is 
the  nature  of  his  law  of  poetical  expression ;  and 
lastly,  in  what  respects  his  principles  and  practice 
fall  short  of  the  highest  law  of  English  Poetry,  as 
embodied  in  the  work  of  poets  like  Chaucer  and 
Milton. 

Three  main  rules  of  guidance  are  laid  down  by 
Pope  in  his  Essay.  They  are  these :  "  Follow 
Nature;"  "  Avoid  false  wit ;  "  ''Imitate  the  Classics." 
The  first  of  these  principles  is  declared  as  follows  : 

First  follow  Nature  and  your  judgment  frame 
By  her  just  standard  which  is  still  the  same. 
Unerring  Nature,  still  divinely  bright, 
One  clear,  unchanged,  and  universal  light, 
Life,  force,  and  beauty  must  to  all  impart 
At  once  the  source,  and  end,  and  test  of  art. 

So  good  a  judge  as  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  regards 
this  principle  as  one  of  what  De  Quincey  calls 
"mouldy  commonplaces,"  because  he  thinks  that  the 
maxim  was  common  to  critics  in  all  ages.  But  that 
is  just  what  it  was  not.  Pope's  advice  as  to  following 
Nature  was,  in  fact,  a  re-declaration  of  the  law  of 
Aristotle,  as  opposed  to  the  practice  of  the  poets  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Dante 
did  not  imitate  Nature ;  he  would  not  have  been  the 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  363 

supreme  poet  that  he  was  if  he  had  failed  to  do  so. 
I  mean  this,  that  though  Nature  has,  as  Pope  says, 
"  a  just  standard  which  is  still  the  same,"  yet  she 
reveals  herself  to  men  in  different  ages  in  different 
aspects,  and  therefore  requires  to  be  imitated  in 
different  forms.  Let  me  illustrate  this  point  by  a 
concrete  example,  to  which  I  have  already  referred 
for  another  purpose.  Tasso,  in  his  Discourse  on  the 
Structure  of  Epic  Poetry,  starts  one  of  Aristotle's 
questions  about  a  point  on  which  his  judgment  is  per- 
plexed, namely,  how  far  it  is  possible  in  a  Christian 
epic  to  make  use  of  supernatural  machinery,  as  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  did ;  since  the  gods  and  goddesses, 
on  whose  actions  so  much  of  the  interest  of  the  ancient 
epic  depends,  are  in  the  Christian  scheme  of  life  con- 
demned as  false  and  delusive  idols.  In  other  words, 
the  polytheistic  conception  of  Nature,  prevalent  when 
Aristotle  proclaimed  that  poetry  was  an  imitation  of 
the  Universal,  was  abhorrent  to  the  monotheistic 
belief  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Tasso,  therefore,  could 
not  imitate  Nature  quite  in  the  same  manner  as 
Homer. 

Nor  would  a  poet  of  the  Middle  Ages  have  pre- 
sented such  an  imitation  of  Man,  and  Society,  and 
Human  Life,  as  would  have  been  characteristic  of  a 
Greek  poet.  The  idea  of  man  in  Greek  and  Roman 
times  was  founded  on  a  perfectly  civic  condition  of 
things;  the  idea  of  man  in  the  Middle  Ages  was 
founded  on  a  system,  partly  ecclesiastical,  and  partly 
feudal,  such  as  we  see  reflected  in  the  philosophy  of 
the  Schoolmen  :  a  view  quite  as  universal  as  the  civil 


364  LAW  IN  TASTE 


view  of  the  Romans — for  it  prevailed  all  over  Mediasval 
Europe — and  yet  quite  opposed  to  it.  Dante,  we 
know,  conceived  of  the  order  of  human  society,  as 
proceeding  immediately  from  the  mind  of  God,  and 
he  regarded  the  constitution  of  Europe  in  his  day, 
whether  this  were  called  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  or 
the  Christian  Republic,  as  part  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment of  the  Universe.  Hence  Dante's  conception  of 
Nature  was  primarily  theological ;  and  hence  too  the 
eminently  suggestive  remark  of  Boccaccio  in  his 
Life  of  Dante :  "  I  say  that  Theology  and  Poetry 
may  be  said  to  be  almost  one  where  their  subject  is 
the  same  :  nay,  more,  I  say  that  Theology  is  nothings 
but  God's  poetry." 

Again,  as  the  Mediaeval  idea  of  the  Universal 
differed  fundamentally  from  the  idea  of  the  Universal 
in  Greek  and  Roman  times,  so  was  the  idea  of 
Nature  in  the  seventeenth  century  beginning  to 
oppose  itself  to  that  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
Humanism  of  the  Renaissance  had  something  in 
common  with  the  thought  both  of  the  Christian  and 
pre-Christian  eras.  In  its  direct  investigation  of 
physical  nature,  and  in  its  appreciation  of  the  civic 
constitution  of  society,  it  had  close  affinities  with  the 
spirit  of  Greek  and  Roman  philosophy ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  basis  of  its  conception  of  things  still 
rested  on  the  traditional  theology  of  the  Church. 
But  the  framework  of  this  theology  was  being  im- 
mensely modified  by  circumstances,  such  as  the 
speculation  of  Copernicus,  the  discoveries  of  Colum- 
bus,    the     invention    of     printing,     and     the     new 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  365 

political  system  of  Europe  which  arose  out  of  the 
Reformation.  Though,  it  was  true,  as  Pope  says, 
that  Nature,  both  in  itself  and  in  the  general  con- 
stitution of  the  human  mind,  shone  with  "  one  clear, 
unchanged,  and  universal  light,"  yet  that  light  in 
the  most  representative  conception  of  the  seventeenth 
century  was  no  longer  mainly  theological, 

I  turn  to  consider  the  second  point,  namely,  the 
law  of  poetical  expression,  as  it  is  declared  in  the 
Essay  on  Criticism : 

Expression  is  the  dress  of  thought,  and  still 
Appears  more  decent  as  more  suitable. 
A  vile  conceit  in  pompous  words  expressed 
Is  like  a  clown  in  regal  purple  dressed. 

These  lines  define  very  happily  the  law  of  expression, 
as  embodied  in  the  work  of  the  best  classical  writers, 
who,  imitating  Nature  on  the  polytheistic  principle, 
conceived  of  her  with  admirable  force  and  simplicity, 
as  she  lay  before  their  eyes.  But  the  passage  also 
indicates  very  suggestively  the  nature  of  the  re- 
volution in  thought,  caused  by  the  transition  from 
mediaeval  to  modern  times.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
the  centre  of  man's  interest  had  been  shifted  from 
the  visible  world  of  sense  to  the  world  beyond  the 
grave,  and  in  order  to  express  the  theological  con- 
ception of  Nature,  the  poet  had  recourse  to  the 
forms  of  Allegory  which  were  almost  unused  by  his 
Pagan  predecessors,  l^occaccio,  in  the  Life  of  Dante, 
to  which  I  have  already  referred,  says  :  "  What  is  it, 
but  a  kind  of  poetic  invention,  when  in  the  Scripture 
Christ  is  spoken  of  at  one  time  as  a  lion,  at  another 


366  LAW  IN  TASTE 


as  a  lamb,  sometimes  as  a  worm,  at  other  times  as  a 
dragon,  at  others  as  a  rock,  and  in  many  other 
ways  to  recite  all  which  would  be  tedious.  What 
else  are  the  words  of  the  Saviour  in  the  Gospel,  but 
a  discourse  of  what  is  beyond  the  senses,  which 
manner  of  speaking  we  in  more  ordinary  language 
call  allegory."  It  will  be  observed  that  Boccaccio 
here  says  almost  exactly  the  same  thing  as  Beatrice, 
when  she  explains  to  Dante  the  use  of  allegory : 
"  Thus  it  is  needful  to  speak  to  your  wit,  because 
from  the  object  of  sense  alone  it  apprehends  what  it 
afterwards  makes  worthy  of  the  understanding,"  In 
fact,  the  theological  conception  of  Nature  in  the 
Middle  Ages  is  the  secret  of  the  abundant  use  in 
those  ages  of  the  allegorical  form  of  poetry. 

The  theological  habit  of  thought  continued  to 
prevail  in  Europe  long  after  Catholic  unity  was 
destroyed  by  the  Reformation ;  and  theological 
subjects  were  in  special  favour  with  the  Humanist 
poets  of  the  Reformed  persuasion.  But  in  none  of 
these  is  Nature  conceived  in  the  same  clear  and 
universal  light  as  she  is  presented  to  us  in  the 
Divine  Coraedy.  Again,  in  consequence  of  their 
theological  turn  of  thought,  the  allegorical  form  was 
extremely  popular  with  the  English  poets  of  the 
first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  ;  but  no  one  can 
fail  to  observe  that  this  form  was  employed  by  them, 
not  as  it  was  by  Dante  for  the  conveyance  of  spiritual 
truths,  but  for  the  purpose  of  pleasing  the  im- 
agination with  riddles,  paradoxes,  and  far-fetched 
metaphors.     The  allegorical  form  at  that  period,  in 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  367 

fact,  became  a  poetical  end  in  itself.  Out  of  this 
decadent  tendency  of  the  imagination  arose  the 
practice  of  False  Wit,  so  admirably  defined  by 
Johnson,  who  nevertheless  failed  to  trace  it  to  its 
native  source.  "  Wit,  abstracted  from  its  effects 
upon  the  hearer,  may,"  he  says,  "  be  more  rigorously 
and  philosophically  considered  as  a  kind  of  discordia 
conco7's,  a  combination  of  dissimilar  images,  or  dis- 
covery of  occult  resemblances  in  things  apparently 
unlike."  And  in  this  respect  Locke  contrasts  the 
poetry  still  agreeable  to  the  taste  of  his  age  with 
the  operations  of  sense,  judgment,  and  reason. 
"This,"  he  says,  "is  a  way  of  proceeding  quite  con- 
trary to  metaphor  and  allusion ;  wherein  for  the 
most  part  lies  the  entertainment  and  pleasantry  of  wit 
which  strikes  so  lively  on  the  fancy,  and  is  therefore 
so  acceptable  to  all  people."  Aiming  persistently  at 
the  discovery  of  subtle  resemblances,  and  the  com- 
bination of  contrary  images,  the  poets  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  altogether  neglected  the  necessary 
basis  of  all  true  poetry,  the  Universal  in  Nature. 
Johnson  describes  with  equal  happiness  and  sagacity 
the  unsoundness  of  their  method  :  "  Their  attempts 
were  always  analytic ;  they  broke  every  image  into 
fragments,  and  could  no  more  represent,  by  their 
slender  conceits  and  laboured  particularities,  the 
prospects  of  nature,  or  the  scenes  of  life,  than  he 
who  dissects  a  sunbeam  with  a  prism  can  exhibit 
the  wide  effulgence  of  a  summer  noon." 

Let  me  illustrate  these  remarks  by  some   concrete 
examples    of   what    is    called    the    "metaphysical" 


368  LAW  IN  TASTE 


poetry  of  the  seventeenth  century.  First,  I  will 
give  you  a  specimen  of  the  neglect  of  the  Universal 
common  in  this  kind  of  poetry,  and  nowhere 
more  characteristically  manifested  than  in  Phineas 
Fletcher's  Purple  Island.  The  subject  of  the  Purple 
Island,  as  the  author  declares,  is  theological.  It 
professes  to  describe  the  State  of  Man's  Nature  after 
the  Fall,  and  the  conflict  by  which  he  is  restored  to 
a  State  of  Grace,  a  theme,  no  doubt,  of  universal 
interest.  The  form  in  which  the  subject  is  embodied 
is  allegory.  Speaking  in  the  character  of  a  shepherd, 
the  poet  expounds  to  his  companions  the  history  and 
constitution  of  an  island  which  typifies  the  body 
and  soul  of  man ;  and  so  far  the  theological  subject, 
and  the  allegorical  form  of  the  work,  place  it  in  the 
same  category  of  composition  as  Tlie  Divine  Comedy. 
But  immediately  the  poet  begins  to  execute  his 
design,  it  is  seen  that  his  poem,  unlike  Dante's,  is 
wanting  altogether  in  unity  of  thought  and  action. 
What  was  really  attractive  to  Fletcher  in  the  poetical 
idea  was  the  opportunity  afi'orded  of  likening  the 
diflferent  parts  of  the  human  body  to  the  physical 
configuration  of  an  island.  Five  or  six  cantos  of  his 
poem  are  devoted  entirely  to  anatomy,  and  the  ingenuity 
with  which  the  particular  resemblances  are  worked  out 
is  quite  admirable.  When,  however,  this  essentially 
partial  conception  is  expressed,  the  poetical  impulse 
is  exhausted.  All  that  is  moral  in  the  subject,  all 
that  is  organically  required  for  the  development  of 
the  action,  is  treated  perfunctorily,  and  since  the 
subject    provides   no    natural    exit,    the    author    is 


LECT,  VIII  POPE  369 

obliged  to  conclude  it  with  a  fight  between  the 
Prince  of  the  Island  and  a  Dragon,  in  feeble  imitation 
of  Spenser  in  the  first  book  of  The  Faery  Queeyi. 

From  this  neglect  by  the  metaphysical  poets  of 
the  Universal  in  their  conceptions  springs  an  essential 
impropriety  in  their  forms  of  expression,  which  may 
be  exemplified  from  a  poem  written  by  Giles  Fletcher, 
brother  of  Phineas,  Christ's  Death  and  Victory. 
Here,  too,  we  have  a  theological  subject,  almost 
identical  with  Paradise  Regained;  and  here,  again, 
there  is  a  complete  absence  of  unity  of  action.  The 
four  cantos  of  which  the  poem  is  composed  deal 
separately  with  particular  themes  :  The  Contest 
between  Divine  Justice  and  Mercy  ;  the  Temptation ; 
the  Crucifixion  and  Descent  into  Hell ;  the  Resur- 
rection and  Ascension  into  Heaven.  The  poet  takes 
his  start  from  the  text  of  the  Bible,  but  embroiders 
his  narrative  with  a  number  of  paradoxes,  metaphors, 
classical  similes,  and  strangely  coined  words,  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  produce  an  effect  of  brilliantly  con- 
trasted patchwork.  His  whole  strength  is  thrown 
into  his  particular  descriptions,  the  character  of  which 
may  be  inferred  from  a  few  examples ;  of  which  the 
following  gives  a  portrait  of  the  Redeemer  evidently 
modelled  on  the  description  of  Adonis  by  Marino  : 

His  cheeks  as  snowy  apples,  soft  in  wine, 
Had  their  red  roses  quencht  with  lilies  white, 
And  like  to  garden  strawberries  did  shine, 
Washt  in  a  bowl  of  milk,  or  rosebuds  bright. 
Unbosoming  their  breasts  against  the  light. 

Here  love-sick  souls  did  eat,  there  drank  and  made 
Sweet-smelling  posies  that  could  never  fade. 
2b 


370  LAW  IN  TASTE 


The  shocking  effeminacy  of  this  speaks  for  itself. 
Here,  again,  is  a  stanza  followed  by  a  simile  which 
shows  what  havoc  wit  made  of  taste  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  poet  is  describing  the  holy 
women  returninsf  from  the  Entombment : 


o 


So  home  their  bodies  went  to  seek  repose, 
But  at  the  grave  they  left  their  souls  behind  : 
0  who  the  force  of  love  celestial  knows 
That  can  the  claims  of  nature's  self  unbind, 
Sending  the  body  home  -w-ithout  the  mind  ! 
Ah,  blessed  Virgin  !  what  high  angel's  art 
Can  ever  count  thy  tears  or  sing  thy  smart, 
When  every  nail  that  pierced  his  hand  did  pierce  thy  heart. 

So  Philomel,  perched  on  an  aspen  sprig. 

Weeps  all  the  night  her  lost  virginity, 

And  sings  her  sad  tale  to  the  merry  twig, 

That  dances  at  such  joyful  misery, 

Ne  ever  lets  sweet  rest  invade  her  eye. 
But  leaning  on  a  thorn  her  dainty  chest. 
For  fear  soft  sleep  should  steal  into  her  breast, 

Expresses  in  her  song  grief  not  to  be  expressed. 

But,  after  all,  the  most  striking  examples  of  the 
"  false  wit "  of  the  seventeenth  century  are  to  be 
found  in  the  lyric  poets,  of  whom  Crashaw  may  be 
taken  as  a  notable  example,  since  his  work  attracted 
the  criticism  of  Pope  himself,  who  calls  him  a 
"worse  Cowley,"  and  observes  of  him :  "I  take  this 
poet  to  have  writ  like  a  gentleman,  that  is  at  leisure 
hours,  and  more  to  keep  out  of  idleness  than  to 
establish  a  reputation,  so  that  nothing  regular  or  just 
can  be  expected  of  him.  All  that  regards  design, 
form,  fable,  which  is  the  soul  of  poetry,  all  that 
concerns  exactness  or  consent  of  parts,  which  is  the 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  371 

body,  will  probably  be  wanting.  Only  pretty  con- 
ceptions, fine  metaphors,  glittering  expressions,  and 
something  of  a  neat  cast  of  verse,  which  are  pro- 
perly the  dress,  gems,  or  loose  ornaments  of  poetry, 
may  be  found  in  these  verses.  .  .  .  His  thoughts, 
one  may  observe  in  the  main,  are  pretty ;  but  some- 
times far-fetched,  and  too  often  strained  and  stiffened 
to  make  them  appear  the  greater.  For  men  are 
never  so  apt  to  think  a  thing  great  as  when  it  is  odd 
or  wonderful ;  and  inconsiderate  authors  would  rather 
be  admired  than  understood." 

Richard  Crashaw  was  a  convert  to  Roman 
Catholicism,  with  a  soul  possessed  by  the  mystical 
piety  characteristic  of  women  like  S.  Teresa  and 
Mme.  Guyon.  But  he  was  also  an  excellent 
classical  scholar,  and  he  endeavoured  to  find 
a  vehicle  for  his  devotional  feelings  in  the  forms 
and  images  invented  to  express  the  wholly  an- 
tagonistic sentiments  of  Anacreon  and  Catullus. 
His  poetry  is  full  of  sighs,  kisses,  ardours,  languors, 
and  embraces,  intended  to  express  the  amorous 
raptures  of  the  soul  in  a  state  of  religious  ecstasy. 
To  every  one  who  can  appreciate  either  the  stern 
devotional  style  of  Dante,  or  the  exquisite  taste  of 
Virgil,  the  combination  must  appear  deplorable. 
Here,  for  example,  are  some  lines  "  On  the  Glorious 
Assumption  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  "  : 

Hark,  she  is  called  !  the  parting  hour  is  come  ! 

Take  thy  farewell,  poor  world,  Heaven  must  go  home. 

A  piece  of  heavenly  light,  purer  and  brighter 

Than  the  chaste  stars,  whose  choice  lamps  come  to  light  her, 


372  LAW  IN  TASTE 


While  through  the  crystal  orbs,  clearer  than  they, 
She  climbs,  and  makes  a  far  more  milky  way. 
She's  called  again  !  hark,  how  th'  immortal  Dove 
Sighs  to  his  silver  mate :  Rise  up,  my  love, 
Rise  up,  my  fair,  my  spotless  one. 
The  winter's  past,  the  rain  is  gone  : 
The  spring  is  come,  the  flowers  appear 
No  sweets,  since  thoii  art  wanting  here. 

He  sends  Mrs.  M.  R.  the  present  of  a  Prayer-Book, 
and  writes  in  it  the  following  description  of  a  soul 
transported  by  Divine  Love  : 

0  fair !   0  fortunate  !  0  rich  !  0  dear  ! 
0  happy  and  thrice  happy  she, 
Dear  silver-breasted  dove. 
Whoe'er  she  be, 
Whose  early  love 
With  winged  vows 

Makes  haste  to  meet  her  morning  spouse, 
And  close  with  his  immortal  kisses ; 

Happy  soul,  who  never  misses 

To  improve  that  precious  hour : 

And  every  day 

Seize  her  sweet  prey, 

All  fresh  and  fragrant  as  he  rises. 

Dropping  with  a  balmy  shower 

A  delicious  dew  of  spices. 

In  a  hymn  to  the  name  and  honour  of  S.  Teresa 
we  find  the  following  conception  of  the  Saint's  ex- 
periences in  the  moment  of  death  : 

How  kindly  will  thy  gentle  heart 
Kiss  the  sweetly  killing  dart : 
And  close  in  his  embraces  keep 
Those  delicious  wounds  that  weep 
Balsam,  to  heal  themselves  with  thus  ; 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  373 

When  these  thy  deaths  so  numerous 
Shall  all  at  once  die  into  one, 
And  melt  thy  soul's  sweet  mansion : 
Like  a  soft  lump  of  incense,  basted 
By  too  hot  a  fire,  and  wasted 
Into  perfuming  clouds,  so  fast 
Shalt  thou  exhale  to  Heaven  at  last 
In  a  dissolving  sigh,  and  then 

0  what  1  ask  not  the  tongues  of  men  ! 

One  of  his  favourite  themes  is  the  Weeping  Magda- 
lene, whose  tears  he  likens  to  stars,  cream  on  the 
Milky  Way,  gold,  dew,  pearls,  and  balsam,  and  nectar 
for  souls  on  their  arrival  in  Heaven  : 

When  some  new  bright  guest 

Takes  up  among  the  stars  a  room, 

And  Heaven  will  make  a  feast, 
Angels  with  their  bottles  come, 

And  draw  from  these  full  eyes  of  thine 

Their  master's  water,  their  own  wine. 

Angelic  tapsters  !  Poetry  of  this  kind  shows  us  very 
clearly  what  had  happened  to  the  religious  imagina- 
tion in  the  seventeenth  century.  We  see  the  decay 
of  the  old  austere  theological  method,  applied  to  the 
interpretation  of  Nature  by  the  Catholic  Church.  We 
see  at  the  same  time  the  perversion  of  the  time- 
honoured  forms  of  allegorical  poetry,  and  their  mixture 
with  the  pseudo-classical  forms  of  the  Renaissance,  just 
as  in  the  architecture  of  the  period,  and  especially  in 
the  Churches  of  the  Jesuits,  we  find  fat  and  florid 
Cupids,  as  the  only  kind  of  image  which  can  convey 
to  men's  minds  the  idea  of  angels. 

This  discordia  concws  of  false  wit  was  what  Bacon 


374  LAW  IN  TASTE 


calls  an  idol  of  the  Cave,  because  it  had  a  superficial 
resemblance  to  fine  art  when  truly  defined,  that  is  to 
say,  "  an  assemblage  of  contrary  qualities  mixed  in 
such  proportion  that  no  one  part  is  felt  to  counteract 
another."  But  whereas  fine  art  implies  a  union 
of  contrary  principles  actually  existing  in  Nature, 
false  wit  aims  solely  at  the  combination  of  dissimilar 
ideas  of  the  mind  without  any  reference  to  the  actual 
truth  of  things.  Pope  fully  understood  that  this 
practice  was  a  violation  of  the  law  of  Fine  Art,  and 
that  it  was  the  business  of  the  poet  to  find  a  founda- 
tion for  his  conceptions  in  the  Universal  :  hence  his 
definition  of  True  Wit : 

True  wit  is  Nature  to  advantage  dressed, 

What  oft  was  thought  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed. 

The  couplet  sets  forth  the  constant  aim  implied  in 
his  standard  of  correctness.  His  idea  of  correctness, 
therefore,  may  be  defined  as  an  imitation  of  Nature, 
in  which  an  attempt  is  made  to  combine  the  Catholic 
spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  the  civic  and  philo- 
sophic ideas  of  the  Renaissance,  in  the  forms  con- 
secrated by  the  usage  of  classic  poetry. 

In  many  respects  Pope  was  exceedingly  well 
equipped  both  by  nature  and  training  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  task.  Born  of  Roman  Catholic 
parents,  he  had  also  had  a  Roman  Catholic  education  ; 
but  this  strong  initial  tendency  towards  mediae valism 
was  counteracted  by  his  early  introduction  to  the 
best  society  of  London,  which  was  of  course  emphati- 
cally Protestant.     His  temperament  and  perceptions 


LECT.  vni  POPE  375 

naturally  caused  him  to  aim  at  a  balance  between  the 
two  religions,  and  he  describes  himself  as 

Papist  or  Protestant,  or  both  between, 
Like  good  Erasmus  in  an  honest  mean. 

His  age  and  the  society  about  him  impelled  his  genius 
in  the  same  direction.  The  year  of  his  birth,  1688, 
marked  the  opening  in  England  of  the  new  constitu- 
tional era.  Proscribed  from  taking  part  in  politics, 
in  which,  from  his  association  with  Swift  and  Boling- 
broke,  he  was  nevertheless  deeply  interested,  he 
formed  for  himself  a  philosophic  idea  of  the  English 
constitution  as  a  whole.  While  he  was  familiar  with 
the  nature  of  the  controversy  between  the  Roman 
and  Anglican  Churches,  he  had  also  read  Bacon,  and 
Locke,  and  Newton,  to  say  nothing  of  the  various 
Deistical  writers  who  put  forward  their  ideas  so 
voluminously  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Hence,  in  his  conception  of  Nature,  his 
imagination  may  be  observed  undergoing  a  develop- 
ment from  Catholicism  to  what  may  be  called  a  state 
of  Catholic  Deism.  Listen,  for  example,  to  the  im- 
passioned lines  in  which  he  makes  Heloise  address 
Abelard,  and  say  if  they  do  not  breathe  the  very 
spirit  of  S.  Benedict  or  S.  Buonaventura  : 

Of  all  affliction  taught  a  lover  yet 
"Tis  sure  the  hardest  science  to  forget. 
How  shall  I  love  the  sin  yet  keep  the  sense  1 
How  love  the  offender  yet  detest  the  offence  1 
How  the  dear  object  from  the  crime  remove  ? 
Or  how  distinguish  penitence  from  love  1 
Unequal  task  !  a  passion  to  resign 


376  LAW  IN  TASTE 


For  hearts  so  touched,  so  pierced,  so  lost  as  mine. 
Ere  such  a  soul  regain  its  peaceful  state, 
How  often  must  it  love,  how  often  hate  ! 
How  often  hope,  despair,  resent,  regret, 
Conceal,  disdain — do  all  things  but  forget ! 
But  let  heaven  seize  it,  all  at  once  'tis  fired. 
Not  touched  but  rapt,  not  wakened  but  inspired  ! 
Oh  come,  oh  teach  me  nature  to  subdue. 
Renounce  my  love,  my  life,  myself — and  you. 
Fill  my  fond  heart  with  God  alone,  for  He 
Alone  can  rival,  can  succeed  to  thee. 

Or  this,  which  has  in  it  something  of  the  spirit  of 
Crashaw,  though  without  his  conceit : 

Vital  spark  of  heavenly  flame. 
Quit,  0  quit,  this  mortal  frame. 
Trembling,  hoping,  lingering,  flying, 
0  the  pain,  the  bliss  of  dying  ! 

Cease,  fond  Nature,  cease  thy  strife  ! 

And  let  me  languish  into  life. 

Hark  they  whisper  :  Angels  say. 
Sister  spirit,  come  away. 
What  is  this  absorbs  me  quite. 
Heals  my  senses,  steals  my  sight, 

Drowns  my  spirit,  draws  my  breath  ? 

Tell  me,  my  soul,  can  this  be  Death  ? 

The  world  recedes  ;  it  disappears  ! 
Heaven  opens  on  my  eyes  !  my  ears 

With  sounds  seraphic  ring  : 
Lend,  lend  your  wings  !  I  mount !  I  fly  ! 
0  Grave,  where  is  thy  victory  1 

0  Death  !  where  is  thy  sting  ? 

Compare  this  glowing  enthusiasm  with  the  Deistic 
rationalism  of  the  address  to  the  Creator  in  the 
Universal  Prayer  : 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  377 

Father  of  all !  in  every  age, 

In  every  clime  adored 
By  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage, 

Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord. 

Thou  first  great  Cause,  least  understood, 

Who  all  my  sense  confined, 
To  know  but  this,  that  Thou  art  good 

And  that  myself  am  blind  ! 

AVhat  a  contrast !  And  yet  both  the  youthful  and  the 
mature  conceptions  have  one  thing  in  common,  the 
idea  of  Nature,  of  the  Universal,  apprehended  by 
feeling  and  instinct  in  the  one  case,  arrived  at  by  an 
effort  of  Reason  in  the  other.  The  latter  perception 
expresses  itself  in  the  note  of  triumph  animating  the 
vigorous  concluding  lines  of  the  Essay  on  Man,  in 
which  the  poet  defines  his  idea  of  Poetry,  and, 
addressing  Bolingbroke,  declares  : 

That  urged  by  thee  I  turned  the  tuneful  art 
From  sounds  to  things,  from  fancy  to  the  heart ; 
For  wit's  false  mirror  held  up  nature's  light ; 
Showed  erring  pride  whatever  is  is  right ; 
That  reason,  passion,  answer  one  great  aim  ; 
That  true  self-love  and  social  are  the  same  ; 
That  virtue  only  makes  our  lives  below, 
And  all  our  knowledge  is  ourselves  to  know. 

You  may  say,  How  limited  an  idea  of  Nature,  of 
the  Universal,  is  this,  compared  with  Dante's  idea  of 
the  Universe  as  presented  in  The  Divine  Comedy ! 
and  you  will  say  it  justly.  Still,  it  is  fair  to  remem- 
ber, in  the  first  place,  that  this  restriction  of  know- 
ledge to  self-knowledge  is  only  the  completion  of  a 
tendency  of  thought  which  reveals  itself  in  Paradise 


378  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Lost,  where,  as  I  pointed  out  in  my  last  lecture,  the 
Archangel  Raphael  exhorts  Adam  : 

Be  lowly  wise, 
Think  only  what  concerns  thee  and  thy  being, 
Dream  not  of  other  worlds. 

And,  in  the  second  place,  the  just  standard  of  com- 
parison is  not  so  much  Pope's  idea  of  Nature 
measured  by  Dante's,  as  Pope's  contrasted  with  the 
False  Wit  of  the  poets  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
Phineas  and  Giles  Fletcher,  Donne,  Crashaw,  Quarles, 
and  Cowley.  Compared  with  any  of  these  — 
for  they  had  all  of  them  given  over  the  attempt 
to  conceive  Nature  poetically  as  a  whole  —  the 
view  of  Nature  presented  in  the  Essay  on  Man 
appears  simple,  harmonious,  majestic.  Moreover,  it 
is  the  idea  of  Pope's  age ;  it  reflects  the  universal 
tendency  of  thought  working  in  England  and  France 
during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  the 
movement,  that  is  to  say,  of  experimental  and  induc- 
tive philosophy,  started  by  Bacon  and  carried  on 
from  him  through  Hobbes  to  Locke,  and  from  Locke 
to  Bolingbroke  and  Hume.  That  is  the  meaning  of 
Pope's  boast  that  he 

Turned  the  tuneful  art 
From  sounds  to  things,  from  fancy  to  the  heart. 

And  that,  too,  explains  why,  by  an  inevitable 
inward  movement,  Pope's  genius  changed  from 
romantic  themes  of  pure  fancy,  like  his  Pastorals,  to 
the  moral,  satiric,  and  didactic  vein  characteristic  of 
his  work  in  his  later  years. 


LECT.  viii  POPE  379 

Two  main  features  distinguish  Pope's  conception 
of  the  Universal  in  Nature  from  that  of  poets  like 
Milton  and  Chaucer.  The  first  is  the  almost  total 
elimination  of  the  theological  element,  and  the 
antagonism  of  the  poet  to  the  scholastic  way  of 
thinking — tendencies  of  reasoning  which  are  reflected 
in  passages  like  the  following  : 

For  forms  of  faith  let  graceless  zealots  fight ; 
He  can't  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  right. 

Scotists  and  Thomists  now  in  peace  remain, 
Amidst  their  kindred  cobwebs  in  Duck  Lane. 

A  second  deluge  learning  thus  o'errun, 

And  the  Monks  finished  what  the  Goths  begun. 

Slave  to  no  sect,  who  takes  no  pi'ivate  road, 
But  looks  through  Nature  up  to  Nature's  God. 

To  sum  up  the  character  of  Pope's  idea  of  the  Uni- 
versal on  the  religious  side :  it  is  an  attempt  to 
reconcile  the  modern  spirit  with  the  spirit  of  antiquity, 
by  eliminating  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  second  feature  is  that,  on  the  secular  side, 
Pope's  tendency  is  to  harmonise  the  civic  spirit  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  with  the  national  spirit  of  modern 
Europe  by  striking  out  the  feudal  element.  The  spirit 
of  feudal  chivalry,  which,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
found  its  abode  in  thousands  of  castles  over  the 
whole  of  Europe,  and  which  in  the  sixteenth  century 
concentrated  itself  in  the  Courts  of  powerful  Monarchs, 
was,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  languishing  in  the 
last  stages  of  decay.     The  poetical  forms,  in  which 


38o  LAW  IN  TASTE 


this  spirit  revealed  itself  to  the  imagination,  had 
passed  through  corresponding  stages  of  development, 
from  the  lyrics  of  the  Troubadours  and  the  romances  of 
the  Trouveres  to  tlie  Sonnets  of  Petrarch,  and  thence 
to  the  Arcadias  of  Sannazaro  and  Sidney,  until,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  approaching  dissolution  of 
chivalrous  romance  is  shown  in  the  Grand  Cyrus  of 
Mdlle.  de  Scudery  and  in  the  Mistress  of  Cowley. 
Still,  even  in  that  late  age,  the  old  fire  of  poetry, 
animated  by  the  principles  of  Love,  Honour,  and 
Loyalty,  breaks  through  the  smoke  of  conceit  and 
paradox  in  some  of  the  lyrics  of  the  English  cavaliers, 
the  last  representatives  of  the  dying  feudal  order,  as 
in  Lovelace's  lines  : 

Yet  this  inconstancy  is  such 

As  you  too  shall  adore  : 
I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much 

Loved  I  not  honour  more. 

Or  in  Montrose's  charming  verses  : 

My  dear,  my  only  love,  I  pray 

That  little  world  of  thee 
Be  governed  by  no  other  sway 

But  purest  Monarchy. 
For  if  confusion  have  a  part, 

Which  virtuous  souls  abhor, 
And  call  a  synod  in  thy  heart, 

I'll  never  love  thee  more. 

Of  this  element  of  Eomance  there  is  no  trace  in 
the  mature  poetry  of  Pope ;  into  his  conception  of 
society  there  enters  neither  the  Petrarcan  tradition 
of    chivalrous    love,    continued   through   more   than 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  381 

three  centuries  of  sonnet-writers,  nor  the  legendary 
spirit  of  the  tales  of  Arthur  and  Charlemagne,  which 
impressed  itself  so  strongly  on  the  imagination  of 
Milton.  In  place  of  it  reigns  the  genius  of  Satire, 
whether  it  be  the  satire  of  social  manners,  embodied 
in  the  exquisite  mock-heroic  style  of  the  Rape  of  tlie 
Lock,  or  the  satire  of  party  politics  and  personal 
conflict,  reflected  in  the  didactic  energy  of  the  Epistle 
to  Arhuthnot,  the  Moral  Essays,  and  the  Imitations 
of  Horace.  In  this  respect,  too.  Pope  was  the  child  of 
his  age.  The  day  of  Sidney  and  Essex,  even  of  Love- 
lace and  Montrose,  of  the  mediaeval  knight  and  courtier, 
with  his  refinements,  his  graces,  and  his  caste  senti- 
ments, had  passed  ;  the  day  of  Walpole  and  Pulteney 
and  Bolingbroke  and  Carteret,  of  clubs  and  cofiee- 
houses,  had  supervened  ;  the  aristocracy  of  England 
were  no  longer  the  followers  of  a  semi-absolute 
Monarch ;  they  were  the  leaders  of  a  ruling  Parlia- 
ment. 

As  the  elements  of  Theology  and  Chivalry 
vanished  out  of  Pope's  conception  of  Nature  and 
Society,  so  did  the  form  of  Allegory  disappear  from 
his  critical  standard  of  expression.  For  allegory,  in 
his  judgment,  had  come  to  be  identical  with  the  form 
of  False  Wit,  with  that  straining  after  remote  and 
paradoxical  ideas,  and  that  hunt  for  unheard-of  images 
and  metaphors,  which  is  the  characteristic  note  of 
the  typical  poet  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Correct- 
ness, on  the  other  hand,  which  was  Pope's  constant  aim, 
implies  the  rejection  of  all  that  is  weak,  superfluous, 
and  irrelevant,  in  the  conception  of  a  subject  viewed 


382  LAW  IN  TASTE 


as  an  organic  whole,  together  with  the  selection  of 
the  words  best  adapted  for  the  clear  conveyance  of 
thought  in  a  metrical  form.  As  he  himself  put  it  in 
one  of  his  Imitations  of  Horace  : 

But  how  severely  with  themselves  proceed 
The  men  who  write  such  verse  as  we  can  read  ! 
Their  own  strict  judges  not  a  word  they  spare, 
That  wants  or  force  or  light  or  weight  or  care. 
Howe'er  unwillingly  it  quits  its  place, 
Nay,  though  at  Court  (perhaps)  it  may  find  grace  ; 
Such  they'll  degrade,  and  sometimes  in  its  stead 
In  downright  charity  revive  the  dead. 

Prune  ihe  luxuriant,  the  uncouth  refine, 
But  show  no  mercy  to  an  empty  line  ; 
Then  polish  all  with  so  much  life  and  ease. 
You  think  'tis  Nature  and  a  knack  to  please. 
"  But  ease  in  writing  comes  from  art  not  chance. 
As  those  move  easiest  who  have  learned  to  dance." 

I  think  we  are  now  in  a  position  to  determine  both 
the  extent  of  the  service  rendered  by  Pope  to  the 
art  of  English  poetry  and  the  limitations  of  his 
genius.  His  great,  his  pre-eminent  merit  is  his  clear 
declaration,  his  careful  observance,  of  the  paramount 
law  of  Poetry,  the  Imitation  of  the  Universal. 
Assuming  as  a  first  principle  of  taste,  that  Fine  Art 
lies  in  the  harmonious  reconciliation  of  contrary 
qualities,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Pope  found 
out  the  way  of  harmonising  the  civic  ideas  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  and  the  classical  forms  of  expres- 
sion, with  the  national  English  spirit  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  with  the  genius  of  the  then  fully  developed 
English  language.     This  was  a  great   achievement ; 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  383 

but  we  have  to  recognise  at  the  same  time  that,  in 
order  to  obtain  his  clear  conception  of  the  Universal, 
he  was  obliged  to  narrow  and  retrench  his  idea  of  the 
second  crreat  law  of  Fine  Art,  the  Law  of  National 
Character. 

As  I  said  in  my  lecture  on  Chaucer,  the  English 
national  character  is  made  up  of  an  extraordinary 
mixture  of  elements,  and  our  highest  poetry  is 
a  reflection  of  all  these  combined  qualities.  It 
reflects  the  Christian  Religion,  as  it  is  formulated  and 
defined  in  Mediaeval  Theology ;  it  reflects  the  tradi- 
tions of  ancient  art,  in  the  full  and  perfect  forms 
recovered  for  us  by  the  Renaissance  ;  and  lastly,  it 
reflects  the  movement  of  our  national  life  and  history 
made  up  by  the  fusion  of  different  races  and  languages. 
Such  is  the  mixed  character  of  the  poetry  of  Chaucer, 
of  Shakespeare,  of  Milton,  which  may  be  described  as 
theological,  feudal,  classical,  and  national ;  whereas, 
on  the  other  hand,  from  the  poetry  of  Pope  the 
theological  and  feudal  elements  of  our  historic  life 
are  excluded.  His  poetry  is  therefore  necessarily 
less  elevated,  and  more  restricted  in  its  scope  than 
that  of  his  greatest  predecessors  ;  it  may  be  added 
that  it  does  not  conform  so  completely  as  their  s  to 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds's  definition  of  Fine  Art.  Pope 
himself  felt  this  and  expressed  the  idea  forcibly 
in  a  letter  to  Swift.  He  says :  "  My  understanding 
indeed,  such  as  it  is,  is  extended  rather  than 
diminished  ;  I  see  things  more  in  the  whole,  more 
consistent,  and  more  clearly  deduced  from,  and  related 
to,  each   other.     But  what  I   gain   on   the   side   of 


384  LAW  IN  TASTE 


philosophy,  I  lose  on  the  side  of  poetry  ;  the  flowers 
are  gone  when  the  fruits  begin  to  ripen,  and  the  fruit 
perhaps  will  never  ripen  perfectly."  So,  too,  he  puts 
it  in  the  Epistle  to  Arhuthnot,  when,  speaking  of  the 
poetry  of  his  youth,  he  says  : 

Soft  were  my  numbers ;  who  could  take  offence, 
While  pure  Description  held  the  place  of  sense  ? 
Like  gentle  Fanny's  was  my  flowery  theme, 
A  painted  mistress  or  a  purling  stream. 

Following  the  inevitable  bent  of  his  genius  and  his 
time,  he  subordinated  the  play  of  imagination  to  the 
severity  of  reason  and  judgment,  more  than  was 
consistent  with  the  highest  requirements  of  English 
Fine  Art.  A  poem,  in  which  the  element  of  Fancy 
is  so  much  subdued  as  it  is  in  the  Essay  on  Man, 
cannot  be  ranked,  as  an  imitation  of  Nature,  in  the 
same  class  as  Paradise  Lost ;  nor  can  compositions, 
which  exclude  so  completely  the  sentiments  connected 
with  romance  and  pastoral  ism  as  the  Moral  Essays, 
or  which  restrict  the  idea  of  society  so  rigidly  to 
the  representation  of  town  life  as  the  Imitations 
of  Horace,  be  regarded  as  affording  so  complete 
a  reflection  of  English  feudal,  rural,  and  domestic 
character  as  TJie  Canterbury  Tales  or  the  Allegro 
and  Penseroso. 

The  same  kind  of  criticism  must  be  passed  on 
Pope's  declaration  of  the  law  of  poetical  expression, 
as  defined  in  his  term  Correctness.  His  idea  of 
correctness,  in  so  far  as  it  consists  in  imitating  the 
spirit  of  the  great  classical  authors,  is  sound,  and  so 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  385 

is  the  principle  which  he  lays  down  in  the  Essay  on 
Criticism : 

Those  Rules  of  old  discovered,  not  devised, 
Are  Nature  still  but  Nature  methodised  ; 
Nature,  like  Liberty,  is  but  restrained 
By  the  same  laws  which  first  herseK  ordained. 

And  when  he  applies  this  principle  of  imitating  the 
classics  by  the  instinctive  light  of  his  genius,  as  he 
does  in  the  Epistle  to  Arhuthnot,  nothing  can  be 
more  truly  English,  natural,  and  correct,  than  the  style 
which  results  from  it.  But  an  excessive  reverence 
for  the  classics  often  led  him  into  formal  imitation, 
which,  judged  by  the  Law  of  English  Character  in 
Poetry,  was  essentially  incorrect.  His  attitude 
towards  the  Latin  and  Greek  poets  sometimes  seems 
almost  servile  : 

Hail,  Bards  triumphant !  born  in  happier  days  ; 

Immortal  heirs  of  universal  praise. 

Whose  honours  with  increase  of  ages  grow, 

As  streams  roll  down,  enlarging  as  they  flow  ; 

Nations  unborn  your  mighty  names  shall  sound, 

And  worlds  applaud  that  must  not  yet  be  found  ! 

O  may  some  spark  of  your  celestial  fire 

The  last,  the  meanest  of  your  sons  inspire 

(That  on  weak  wings  from  far  pursues  your  fliglits. 

Glows  while  he  reads,  but  trembles  as  he  writes), 

To  teach  vain  wits  a  science  little  known, 

T'  admire  superior  sense,  and  doubt  their  own  ! 

Formal  imitation  of  the  classics,  which  produces  the 

manner  of  writing  found  in  Pope's  Pastorals  or  his 

Messiah,   cannot   be   said    to    be    the   following   of 

Nature. 

2c 


?86  LAW  IN  TASTE 


To  sum  up  what  has  been  said  :  Pope's  conception 
of  the  law  of  taste  determines  his  place  in  English 
poetry.  There  are  certain  modern  critics  who  deny- 
altogether  his  title  to  be  ranked  as  a  classic  English 
poet.  This  is  a  judgment  as  bigoted  as  it  is  absurd. 
The  pleasure  with  which  his  poetry  is  read  by  all 
who  can  appreciate  art  is  a  proof  of  the  soundness  of 
his  own  conception  of  the  Universal  in  Nature.  Pope 
is,  and  will  remain,  one  of  the  great  English  classics. 
But  not  less  unreasonable  is  it  to  proclaim  him,  as 
Matthew  Arnold  does,  a  classic  not  of  our  poetry  but 
our  prose ;  for  this  would  imply  that  he  and  Dryden, 
whom  Matthew  Arnold  couples  with  him,  had  made  an 
artistic  mistake  in  employing  the  metrical  form  of  ex- 
pression. Pope  is  one  of  the  great  English  poets ;  how- 
beit,  as  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Samuel  says  of  certain 
of  David's  mighty  men,  he  attains  not  to  the  rank  of 
the  first  three.  He  did  not  reflect  to  the  same 
extent  as  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  and  Milton,  all  those 
complex  principles  which  make  up  the  Christian  idea 
of  the  Universal  in  Nature,  or  all  that  fusion  of 
tastes  and  tendencies  which  constitutes  the  English 
character.  Hence  he  was  not  qualified  to  succeed 
in  the  highest  walks  of  poetry,  the  epic  and  the 
dramatic  :  the  inevitable  development  of  his  genius, 
directed  by  the  character  of  his  age,  helped  to 
suppress  the  lyrical  and  romantic  vein  in  his  imagina- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  in  the  ethical,  the  satiric, 
the  didactic,  in  a  word,  the  more  familiar  departments 
of  poetry,  he  is  supreme,  and  within  this  range  his 
verse  is  deserving  of  the  closest  study,  on  account 


LECT.  VIII  POPE  387 

alike  of  the  clear  conception  of  Nature  which  it 
embodies,  and  of  the  severe  self -judgment  —  so 
opposed  to  the  indolence,  the  inaccuracy,  and  the 
obscurity  of  modern  methods — with  which  he  strives 
to  give  to  every  thought  the  highest  polish  of  correct 
expression. 


IX 

BYRON  AND  TENNYSON 

Macaulay  gives  it  as  his  opinion,  in  his  Essay  on 
Milton,  that  as  civilisation  advances  poetry  almost 
necessarily  declines.  This  proposition  seems  to  con- 
tain the  misstatement  of  an  important  truth.  As 
Macaulay  states  it,  it  is  certainly  not  true,  for  the 
j^neid,  The  Divine  Comedy,  and  Paradise  Lost,  were 
all  produced  at  an  advanced  epoch  of  civilisation  in 
their  different  communities.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a 
historical  fact  that,  after  a  certain  point  of  civilisation 
is  reached,  poems  of  this  class  cease  to  be  produced ; 
and  further,  we  have  complaints  from  late  poets,  such 
as  AVordsworth,  Byron,  and  Tennyson,  that  social 
circumstances  are  unfavourable  to  their  art. 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  as  to  the  truth  of  the 
matter  ?  This,  I  think.  The  advance  of  civilisation 
necessarily  involves  a  conflict  between  the  principles  of 
liberty  and  authority,  because  it  necessitates,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  strengthening  of  the  central  institutions 
on  which  the  life  of  the  community  depends,  and,  on  the 
other,  the  growth  of  a  self-consciousness  in  each  indi- 
vidual, which  is  to  some  extent  adverse  to  the  claims  of 


I.ECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  389 

society.  A  state  is  free  and  great  in  proportion  as  it 
succeeds  in  reconciling  liberty  with  authority.  This 
antagonism  in  the  life  of  society  is  of  course  reflected 
in  the  life  of  Art,  so  that,  whereas  poetry  is  defined 
by  Aristotle  to  be  the  imitation  of  the  Universal  in 
Nature,  there  is  a  strong  tendency  in  late  poetry  to 
be  transformed  into  the  imitation  of  self- consciousness 
in  the  soul  of  the  individual.  When  the  authority  of 
society  is  paramount,  when,  by  virtue  of  a  common 
belief,  men  think  together  about  the  principles  of 
right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil,  then  the  poet  can 
readily  use  the  drama  to  imitate,  before  an  audience,  in 
the  persons  of  actors,  the  universal  idea  of  the  conflict 
always  proceeding  in  human  nature.  When,  how- 
ever, the  right  of  the  individual  to  dissent  from  the 
established  creeds  of  society  has  been  fully  recognised, 
history  seems  to  show  that  epic  and  dramatic  poetry 
become  inadequate  forms  of  imitation.  Thus  we 
have  no  record  of  the  production  of  any  really  great 
dramas  on  the  Attic  stage  after  the  death  of  Socrates ; 
nor  has  any  great  epic  or  dramatic  poem  been  written 
in  England  since  the  establishment  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary regime  in  1688.  Lyric  poetry,  on  the 
contrary,  may  flourish,  and  has  flourished,  in  the  later 
stages  of  society,  because  this  is  a  form  of  the  art 
better  adapted  than  the  others  for  the  expression  of 
individual  ideas.  Hence  Macaulay's  proposition,  if 
properly  amended,  may  stand,  that  when  society 
reaches  the  stage  at  which  self-consciousness  is  widely 
diff'used,  the  epic,  dramatic,  and  it  may  be  added  the 
didactic,  forms  of  poetry  decline,  and  where  poetry 


390  LAW  IN  TASTE 


survives  as  an  art,  men  mainly  seek  to  express  their 
ideas  of  Nature  in  the  lyric  form. 

The  series  of  lectures  which  I  have  had  the 
honour  of  deHvering  to  you  have  been  an  illustration 
of  this  general  truth.  I  have  shown  that  the  course 
of  modern  European  civilisation  has  been  evolved  out 
of  the  conflict  between  several  distinct  and  contrary 
tendencies ;  the  tradition  of  Art  and  letters  derived 
from  pre-Christian  times,  the  formulated  teaching  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  the  customs  and  institutions 
of  the  barbarous  conquerors  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
From  this  struggle  of  forces  have  arisen  those  vary- 
ing ideas  of  Nature  which  philosophers  in  successive 
ages  have  striven  to  define  and  poets  to  imitate,  and 
according  as  one  principle  or  another  among  them 
has  gained  the  mastery,  so  has  the  balance  varied  in 
men's  minds  between  social  authority  and  individual 
liberty.  But  however  the  social  equilibrium  may 
have  been  determined,  I  have  not  hitherto  passed  in 
my  lectures  beyond  the  consideration  of  stages  of  Art, 
in  which  the  universal  idea  of  Nature  is  imitated  in 
one  of  the  more  external  forms — epic,  dramatic,  or 
didactic.  We  have  seen  the  principles  of  liberty  and 
authority  harmonised  by  the  poets  in  such  ideal 
reflections  of  society  as  The  Divine  Comedy,  The 
Canterbury  Tales,  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  Paradise 
Lost,  the  Moral  Essays  of  Pope  ;  but  in  each  and  all 
of  these,  even  in  the  last,  the  general  and  external 
imitation  of  men  and  things  prevails  over  the  self- 
conscious  exhibition  of  the  individual  soul.  We 
have  now  reached  an  epoch  in  which  the  centrifugal 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  391 

movement  of  the  individual  mind  away  from  the 
authoritative  beliefs  of  society  makes  itself  apparent 
by  a  wide  expression  of  self-consciousness  in  art. 
The  poet  begins  to  turn  his  gaze  inward ;  he  shifts 
the  sphere  of  observation  from  the  life  and  character 
of  society  to  the  seclusion  of  his  own  mind.  As  a 
natural  consequence,  during  the  period  extending 
from  the  French  Kevolution  to  our  own  day,  the 
lyrical  form  of  poetry  has  prevailed ;  the  last  hundred 
years  have  been  the  age  of  the  Odes  on  Immortality, 
the  Skylark,  and  the  Nightingale,  the  age  of  In 
Memoriam.  And  what  is  of  main  interest  in  rela- 
tion to  law  in  taste  is  to  observe,  first  the  indirect 
influence  of  society  in  imposing  its  own  limitations 
and  character  on  the  ideas  of  the  individual  poet,  and 
next  the  nature  of  the  ideal  form  in  which  the  poet 
attempts  to  give  the  appearance  of  universality  to  his 
own  self-consciousness. 

But  let  me,  to  begin  with,  illustrate  what  the 
self-conscious  spirit  in  art  is,  by  showing  it,  perhaps 
in  its  earliest,  certainly  in  its  most  characteristic, 
shape,  at  the  opening  of  Rousseau's  Confessions  ."I 
form,"  says  Rousseau,  "  an  enterprise  which  has  had 
no  precedent  and  will  have  no  imitators.  I  wish  to 
show  my  fellows  a  man  in  all  the  truth  of  Nature, 
and  this  man  myself  and  nobody  else.  I  feel  my 
heart  and  I  know  men.  I  am  not  like  any  of  those 
whom  I  have  seen  :  I  venture  to  believe  that  I  have 
not  been  made  like  anybody  else  in  existence.  If 
I  am  not  better  than  they  arc,  at  least  I  am 
something  different.     Whether  Nature  has  done  well 


392  LAW  IN  TASTE 


or  ill  in  breaking  the  mould  in  which  she  has  cast  me 
may  be  decided  after  reading  me.  Let  the  last 
trumpet  sound  when  it  will,  I  shall  come  wdth  this 
book  in  my  hand  to  present  myself  before  the 
Sovereign  Judge.  I  shall  say  boldly :  Here  is  what 
I  have  done,  and  what  I  have  thought,  and  what 
I  was.  I  have  told  the  good  and  the  evil  with 
the  same  frankness.  I  have  kept  back  nothing 
bad :  I  have  added  nothing  good ;  and  if  I  have 
happened  to  employ  some  indifferent  ornament, 
this  has  been  only  to  fill  up  a  void  occasioned  by 
want  of  memory.  I  may  have  supposed  true  what 
I  knew  might  be  so,  never  what  I  knew  to  be 
false.  I  have  shown  myself  such  as  I  was,  good, 
generous,  sublime,  when  I  have  been  so ;  I  have  un- 
veiled my  inward  nature  as  thou  thyself,  Eternal 
Being,  hast  seen  it.  Gather  about  me  the  innumer- 
able crowd  of  my  fellows ;  let  them  hear  my  con- 
fessions ;  let  them  blush  for  my  unworthiness  ;  let 
them  bewail  my  sufferings.  Let  each  of  them  in  turn 
lay  bare  his  heart  at  the  foot  of  Thy  throne  with  the 
same  sincerity,  and  then  let  one  of  them  say  if  he 
dare  :  '  I  was  better  than  this  man.'  " 

This  unqualified  assertion  of  the  rights  of  the 
individual  conscience  is  indeed  only  the  extension  of 
a  spiritual  movement  which  may  be  traced  back  to 
the  Renaissance.  Shakespeare  says  in  one  of  his 
Sonnets  : 

For  why  should  others'  false  adulterate  eyes 
Give  salutation  to  my  sportive  blood  1 
Or  on  my  frailties  why  are  frailer  spies, 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  393 

Which  in  their  wills  count  bad  what  I  think  good  ? 

No,  I  am  that  I  am,  and  they  that  level 

At  my  abuses  reckon  up  their  own : 

I  may  be  straight,  though  they  themselves  be  bevel ; 

By  their  rank  thoughts  my  deeds  must  not  be  shown ; 

Unless  this  general  evil  they  maintain,  1 

All  men  are  bad,  and  in  their  badness  reign. 

But  evidently  self-consciousness  must  have  become 
widely  diffused  in  European  society  since  Shake- 
speare's time,  for  you  will  observe  that  Rousseau  goes 
very  near  relying  on  the  principle  against  which 
Shakespeare  protests  :  "  All  men  are  bad,  and  in  their 
badness  reign."  He  says  frankly :  "  I  am  a  poor, 
mean,  pitiful,  fellow,  but  I  know  that  there  is  some- 
thing interesting  to  the  world  in  my  poverty,  mean- 
ness, and  pitifulness  ;  and  I  am  sure  that  if  I  publish 
my  weaknesses  you,  my  neighbours,  who  are  really  no 
better  than  myself,  will  be  fascinated  with  the  picture 
I  shall  show  you.  This  condition  of  mind  is  so 
universal  that,  although  I  am  myself,  and  nobody  is 
like  me,  still  I  may  confess  myself  to  mankind 
without  any  fear  of  forfeiting  their  sympathy  and 
esteem." 

As  Rousseau's  Confessions  furnish  the  most  strik- 
ing, if  not  the  earliest,  evidence  of  the  spread  of 
self- consciousness  in  European  society,  so  are  his 
novels  the  first  examples  of  the  effects  of  that  self- 
consciousness  on  imitative  art.  Like  all  men  of 
ardent  imagination,  Rousseau  was  anxious  to  uni- 
versalise  his  own  ideas,  but  while  the  creative  artists 
who  preceded  him  sought  to  base  theii-  imitation  of 
Nature  on  the  actions  and  passions  of  men  in  civil 


394  LAW  IN  TASTE 


society,  Kousseau  sought  for  his  materials  in  his  own 
breast.  Over  and  over  again  he  tells  us  in  his 
Confessions  that  such  and  such  incidents  in  La 
Nouvelle  Hcloise  and  Emile  are  ideal  reflections  of 
his  individual  experience,  but  since  he  found  the 
spectacle  of  his  own  passions  and  sentiments  a  drama 
too  bare  of  incident  for  the  demands  of  imagination, 
he  endeavoured  to  extend  it  by  his  descriptions  of 
external  nature,  for  the  sake  not  of  imitating  objects 
in  themselves,  but  of  showing  them  in  their  relation 
to  the  moods  of  the  mind.  As  almost  all  imaginative 
writers  since  Rousseau  have  followed  in  his  footsteps, 
he  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  self- 
conscious,  or  romantic,  mode  of  imitation. 

The  cause  of  this  mood  of  mind,  with  the  artistic 
practice  which  resulted  from  it,  was  the  recoil  from 
the  system  of  Absolutism,  which,  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  prevailed  over  the  whole  conti- 
nent of  Europe.  The  idea  of  Nature  then  almost 
universally  established  had  been  the  work  of  a  small 
circle  of  scholars  and  philosophers  revolving  about 
the  difl"erent  European  courts,  and  since  all  the 
avenues  to  fortune  were  in  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ing few,  organised  society  was  well  content  with 
Leibnitz's  creed  of  optimism,  with  Boileau's  code  of 
taste,  and  with  the  general  conclusion  of  Pope's 
Essay  on  Man,  "Whatever  is  is  right."  On  the 
other  hand,  the  governed  many,  excluded  from  all 
the  privileges  of  political  liberty,  and  oppressed  with 
the  spectacle  of  widespread  misery  among  the  masses 
of  the    people,  were  much  more  inclined   to   think. 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  395 

"  Whatever  is  is  wrong."  The  men  of  letters,  there- 
fore, who  represented  this  portion  of  the  people, 
bending  their  imagination  inward,  naturally  framed 
abstract  ideas  of  society  apart  from  the  springs  of 
political  action.  Certain  it  is  that  Le  Contrat  Social 
was  the  product  of  the  most  characteristic  genius 
of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  in  France,  and  that 
La  Nouvelle  Heloise,  followed  in  the  next  genera- 
tion by  The  Sorrows  of  Werther,  prepared  the  way 
for  the  final  development  of  French  and  German 
Romanticism. 

In  England  the  case  was  different.  There  at  least 
the  regime  of  constitutional  liberty  was  firmly  estab- 
lished, and  the  spectacle  of  its  exercise  both  in  the 
sphere  of  politics  and  letters  had  influenced  pro- 
foundly the  Continental  imagination.  In  England 
the  spirit  of  compromise  reigned  supreme.  The 
nation  had  grown  up  in  the  midst  of  Catholic  and 
Feudal  institutions,  without  suffering  any  check  to 
its  internal  development.  Humanism,  established  in 
the  Universities  by  the  efforts  of  the  first  scholars  of 
the  Renaissance,  while  it  had  enlarged  and  liberalised 
the  old  ways  of  scholastic  thinking,  had  also  helped  to 
mitigate  the  moral  rigidity  of  the  Calvinistic  Reformers. 
The  Crown,  without  being  deprived  of  its  prerogative, 
was  checked  in  the  exercise  of  it  by  Parliament. 

Nevertheless,  this  social  and  intellectual  balance 
had  not  been  attained  without  sacrifices,  mainly 
at  the  expense  of  the  mediaeval  order  of  things, 
and  many  individuals,  who  were  in  sympathy 
with  that   order,    felt   the   restrictions   in    the   idea 


396  LAW  IN  TASTE 


of  Nature  and  Society,  imposed  upon  them  alike  by 
the  political  system  of  Walpole  and  by  the  poetical 
system  of  Pope.  Their  imaginations,  dissatisfied  with 
the  ideals  of  national  action,  were  forced  into  secret 
and  subterranean  channels.  Many  such  underground 
streams  of  thought  may  be  observed  flowing  in  the 
English  art  and  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
quite  apart  from  the  visible  river  of  national  life,  so 
deeply  tinged  with  the  colours  of  Deism,  Materialism, 
Patriotism,  and  Classicalism.  We  see  there  the  stream 
of  Mysticism,  represented  equally  in  such  a  book  as 
William  Law's  Serious  Call  to  a  Devout  Life,  and  at 
a  later  date  in  the  painting  and  poetry  of  Blake ; 
the  stream  of  Methodism  manifesting  itself  in  the 
preaching  of  the  Wesleys  and  the  poetry  of  Cowper  ; 
the  stream  of  Romanticism  obscurely  passing  from 
the  French  pastoral  romance  of  the  seventeenth 
century  into  the  sentimental  novels  of  Richardson, 
and  thence  again  crossing  to  the  Continent  to  inspire 
the  imagination  of  Rousseau. 

Swelled  by  all  these  dififerent  tributaries,  there  was 
in  England,  on  the  eve  of  the  French  Revolution,  a 
great  volume  of  romantic  self-consciousness,  running 
counter  to  the  main  stream  of  national  taste,  as  we  see 
it  reflected  in  a  periodical  like  the  Anti- Jacobin,  which, 
on  one  side,  expresses  the  political  conservatism  of  Pitt, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  literary  conservatism  of  Pope, 
Johnson,  and  Giff'ord.  When  the  spiritual  dykes  burst, 
thewaters  of  self-consciousness  rushed  forth  in  a  torrent 
of  lyric  verse,  of  which  the  original  impulse  has  con- 
tinued to  be  felt  for  more  than  a  hundred  years. 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  397 

They  made  for  themselves  two  distinct  channels — 
one,  containing  the  active  or,  as  it  may  be  called, 
political  spirit  of  self-consciousness,  and  seeking  an 
outlet  in  a  revolt  against  the  creeds,  customs,  and 
institutions  of  society,  the  other,  the  reflective  spirit 
which  restricts  itself  to  an  analysis  of  the  feelings 
and  passions  of  the  mind ;  both  found  an  outward 
expression  in  ideal  forms  of  art.  The  former  move- 
ment, which  includes  the  poetry  of  Shelley,  may  be 
studied  in  the  work  of  Byron ;  the  latter,  embracing 
the  genius  both  of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  has 
its  latest,  and  in  many  respects  its  most  comprehensive, 
expression  in  the  works  of  Tennyson. 

Byron  is  the  most  self-conscious  figure  in  the 
whole  history  of  poetry ;  and  as  the  operations  of 
Kousseau's  self-consciousness  can  best  be  observed  in 
his  Confessions,  so  is  the  key  to  Byron's  self-con- 
sciousness furnished  by  his  earliest  volume.  Hours  of 
Idleness.  Here  he  may  be  seen,  contemplating  his 
inward  image  and  exhibiting  himself  to  mankind,  pre- 
cisely as  if  he  were  some  object  in  external  nature. 
Though  the  book  is  announced  as  the  work  of  "  a 
minor,"  the  writer  moralises  upon  himself  as  an  ex- 
hausted votary  of  pleasure.  In  an  address  to  one  of 
his  acquaintance  he  speaks  of  himself  as  "  a  Timon  of 
19."  He  appears  before  the  mirror  of  his  imagination, 
sometimes  as  the  impoverished  lord  of  a  half-ruined 
Abbey,  sometimes  as  the  last  of  a  long  line  of  wicked 
ancestry,  or  again,  as  the  heart-broken  lover  of  one 
whom  marriage  with  a  rival  has  separated  from  him 
for  ever.     Already  his  passion  for  solitary  Nature  and 


398  LAW  IN  TASTE 


his  antagonism  to  society,  afterwards  so  powerfully 
expressed  in  the  third  canto  of  Childe  Harold,  is  re- 
vealed in  the  germ,  nor,  in  view  of  his  history,  is  it 
possible  to  read  without  wonder  the  following  lines, 
the  work  of  a  boy  of  nineteen  : 

Few  are  my  years,  and  yet  I  feel 

The  world  was  ne'er  designed  for  me  : 
Ah  !  why  do  darkening  shades  conceal 

The  hour  when  man  must  cease  to  be  1 
Once  I  beheld  a  splendid  dream, 

A  visionary  scene  of  bliss. 
Truth !  wherefore  did  thy  hated  beam 

Awake  me  to  a  world  like  this  ? 

I  loved — but  those  I  loved  are  gone, 

Had  friends — my  early  friends  are  fled, 
How  cheerless  feels  the  heart  alone. 

When  all  its  former  hopes  are  dead  ! 
Though  gay  companions  o'er  the  bowl 

Dispel  awhile  the  sense  of  ill ; 
Though  pleasure  stirs  the  maddening  soul, 

The  heart,  the  heart  is  lonely  still. 

Fain  would  I  fly  the  haunts  of  men  ; 

I  seek  to  shun,  not  hate,  mankind ; 
My  breast  requires  the  sullen  glen, 

W^hose  gloom  may  suit  a  darkened  mind. 
Oh,  that  to  me  the  wings  were  given, 

Which  bear  the  turtle  to  her  nest ! 
Then  would  I  cleave  the  vault  of  Heaven, 

To  flee  away,  and  be  at  rest. 

Truly,  says  the  Scripture,  "  The  heart  is  deceitful 
above  all  things,  who  can  know  it  ? "  Little  did 
Byron  think,  when  he  breathed,  in  all  sincerity,  his 
sentimental  and  monastic  aspirations  for  the  wings  of 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  399 

a  dove,  that,  within  a  year,  he  would  be  attacking 
in  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers,  the  most 
famous  and  powerful  names  in  the  literature  of  the 
time ;  that  his  request  for  the  sullen  glen  whose 
gloom  might  suit  a  darkened  mind  was  to  be  followed 
by  years  of  excitement,  in  which  the  creator  of  Conrad 
and  Cain  and  Sardanapalus  was  to  impersonate  for  the 
moment  the  spirit  of  all  that  was  brilliant  and  revolu- 
tionary in  the  society  about  him.  The  truth  is  that 
Byron's  nature  was  far  too  ardent  and  energetic  to 
confine  itself,  like  Rousseau,  to  the  cloister  of  his  own 
thought ;  he  needed  to  project  his  imagination  into 
action,  whether  as  the  leader  of  a  national  rising  in 
Greece  or  as  the  satirist  of  society  in  England.  He 
thirsted  for  distinction,  and  sought  it  sometimes  in 
swimming,  boxing,  and  even  in  cricket,  sometimes  in 
epic,  dramatic,  and  satiric  verse ;  nor  can  anything 
be  more  instructive  to  the  critic  than  to  observe  the 
action  and  reaction  between  the  self-consciousness  of 
his  powerful  genius  and  the  immutable  necessities  of 
these,  the  more  external  forms  of  the  art  of  poetry. 

Viewed  strictly  on  their  epic  and  dramatic  side, 
the  romantic  tales  and  tragedies  of  Byron  are  wanting 
in  most  of  the  qualities  which  such  compositions  de- 
mand. This  is  a  deficiency  which,  as  I  have  said,  is 
common  to  all  late  poets.  The  great  minstrel,  the 
born  dramatist,  must  be  above  all  things  a  creator. 
It  is  his  business  to  produce  what  Aristotle  calls  t6 
TTiOavov,  the  efi'ect  of  ideal  probability,  to  invent  a 
visionary  world  in  which  his  own  imagination  and 
that  of  his  audience  can  breathe  freely  outside  them- 


400  LAW  IN  TASTE 


selves,  to  people  it  with  beings  unlike  anything  in 
actual  experience,  and  yet  capable  of  raising  in  the 
minds  of  his  hearers  images  of  men  and  women,  ex- 
pressing themselves  in  sentiments  and  diction  recall- 
ing those  of  real  life.  Should  any  appearance  of 
mechanism  or  artifice  raise  the  suspicion  that  these 
actors  are  the  lifeless  puppets  of  the  poet's  brain,  a 
sense  of  unreality  intrudes  on  the  sacred  ground,  and 
the  illusion  vanishes.  For  the  creation  of  the  illusion  a 
groundwork  of  legend  or  history  seems  almost  neces- 
sary, because,  as  Aristotle  says,  the  mind  most  readily 
believes  in  things  which  are  reported  to  have  happened ; 
certain  it  is  that  neither  the  Greek  dramatists  nor 
Shakespeare  invented  the  matter  of  their  dramas. 
But  in  the  late  days  of  poetry  it  is  difficult  to  find 
legendary  matter  on  which  the  imagination  can  work 
sympathetically ;  hence  the  creative  instinct  turns  to 
the  prose  romance  in  preference  to  poetry,  and  prob- 
ably the  only  example  of  an  ancient  legend  being 
conceived  by  a  self-conscious  poet  with  unerring 
instinct,  and  expressed  with  perfect  propriety,  is 
Goethe's  Faust. 

But  while  all  self-conscious  art  is  liable  to  these 
drawbacks,  Byron's  poetry  suffers  from  them  in  a  more 
than  ordinary  degree.  His  method  of  composing  a 
drama,  for  example,  is  entirely  undramatic.  He  never 
selects  his  action  for  its  interest  as  a  whole,  but  because 
it  gives  him  an  opportunity  for  the  exhibition  of 
certain  special  characters,  sentiments,  and  descriptions, 
a  method  which  is  of  course  an  inversion  of  the  method 
of  Sophocles  or  Shakespeare.     Nothing  can  be  more 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  401 

absurd  than  the  plot  of  Manfred  or  The  Defo7"med 
Transformed ;  nothing  more  bare  of  dramatic  situa- 
tion than  The  Tivo  Foscari  or  Sardanapalus.  Of  the 
arts  of  complication,  change  of  fortune,  and  denoue- 
ment, necessary  to  the  construction  of  a  good  play 
or  a  good  story,  Byron  was  either  ignorant  or  care- 
less, as  must  be  evident  to  every  reader  of  Lara  or 
The  Corsair.  Nor  are  these  defects  of  ideal  structure 
atoned  for  by  the  interest  and  sympathy  excited  by 
the  characters  represented.  We  do  not  think  of 
Byron's  dramatis  personae  as  we  do  of  Ulysses,  or 
Thersites,  or  Shylock,  or  Meg  Merrilies,  that  is  to 
say,  as  beings  who  have  an  ideal  existence  of  their 
own ;  Cain,  and  Manfred,  and  Lara,  and  Conrad,  are 
felt  to  be  nothing  but  externalised  reflections  of  the 
poet  himself. 

But  when  we  turn  from  the  epic  and  dramatic 
forms  of  Byron  to  the  lyrical  impulse  out  of  which 
they  spring,  the  whole  aspect  of  the  question  changes. 
We  see  then  that  the  characteristics  of  his  poetry 
are  the  result  of  an  effort  to  find  what  is  universal  in 
nature  in  his  own  self- consciousness,  and  to  bring 
himself  into  touch  with  society  by  clothing  his  self- 
consciousness  in  an  external  shape.  The  epic  form  of 
verse  is  employed  by  him,  because  it  gives  him  an 
opportunity  of  describing  his  own  moods  and  those 
appearances  of  inanimate  Nature  which  are  akin  to 
them ;  the  drama  enables  him  to  multiply  himself  in 
a  variety  of  dramatis  personae,  and  by  means  of 
frequent  soliloquy  ;  in  the  satire,  especially  the  per- 
sonal   form  of  satire,    developed   by  Pope,    he    can 

2d 


402  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  iii 

indulge  fully  his  spleen  against  the  established  order 
of  society.  Hence  we  are  necessarily  brought  to  judge 
of  his  work  from  the  starting-point  fixed  by  Rousseau, 
and  setting  aside  the  question  whether  any  man  has 
a  right  to  confess  himself  to  the  reader  without 
reference  to  the  supreme  authority  of  moral  law,  the 
points  for  the  critic  to  decide  are,  first,  whether  the 
poetry  of  Byron  raises  in  the  mind  the  idea  of  the 
Universal,  and  secondly,  whether  the  form  of  his  ex- 
pression is  an  adequate  vehicle  for  communicating 
this  idea  to  the  world. 

As  to  the  first  question  there  can  be  but  one  answer. 
Byron,  the  most  self-conscious,  the  most  individual, 
of  English  poets,  is  also,  in  a  sense,  the  most  repre- 
sentative of  all  English  poets  since  Shakespeare. 
Whatever  there  is  in  human  nature  of  consciousness 
of  good  and  evil,  of  rebellion  against  the  law  and 
order  of  the  universe,  of  discontent  with  the  standards 
of  society,  seems  to  have  concentrated  itself  in  the 
mind  of  this  child  of  genius,  convulsed  by  the  violence 
of  his  own  passions,  morbidly  sensitive  to  a  single 
physical  defect,  haunted  by  the  fear  of  madness  and 
the  sense  of  inherited  crime,  always  revolving  in  his 
heart  the  real  or  imaginary  injuries  he  had  suffered 
from  mankind.  The  meeting  of  so  many  outward 
and  inward  forces  in  Byron's  imagination  produced  in 
him  two  typical  moods,  both  of  which  had  been  ex- 
pressed long  before  in  dramatic  and  epic  poetry. 
One  was  the  intellectual  ennui  of  Hamlet:  "  What  a 
piece  of  work  is  a  man  !  How  noble  in  reason  !  how 
infinite  in  faculties !  in  form  and  moving  how  express 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  403 

and  admirable !  in  action  how  like  an  angel !  in  ap- 
prehension how  like  a  god  !  the  beauty  of  the  world  ! 
the  paragon  of  animals  !  And  yet  to  me,  what  is  this 
quintessence  of  dust  ?  Man  delights  not  me  ;  no,  nor 
woman  neither,  though  by  your  smiling  you  seem  to 
say  so." 

Under  the  influence  of  Rousseau,  the  discontent 
with  self  and  society,  thus  expressed  in  the  character 
of  Hamlet,  grew  into  the  feeling  for  external  Nature, 
so  widely  experienced  in  the  modern  mind,  which 
Byron  expresses  in  Childe  Harold  : 

I  live  not  in  myself,  but  I  become 
Portion  of  that  around  me ;  and  to  me 
High  mountains  are  a  feeling,  but  the  hum 
Of  human  cities  torture  :  I  can  see 
Nothing  to  loathe  in  nature,  save  to  be 
A  link  reluctant  in  a  fleshly  chain, 
Class'd  among  creatures,  when  the  soul  can  flee, 
And  with  the  sky,  the  peak,  the  heaving  plain 
Of  ocean,  or  the  stars,  mingle,  and  not  in  vain. 

Are  not  the  mountains,  waves,  and  skies  a  part 
Of  me  and  of  my  soul,  as  I  of  them  ? 
Is  not  the  love  of  these  deep  in  my  heart 
With  a  pure  passion  "i  should  I  not  contemn 
All  objects,  if  compared  with  these  ?  and  stem 
A  tide  of  suffering,  rather  than  forgo 
Such  feelings  for  the  hard  and  worldly  phlegm 
Of  those  whose  eyes  are  only  turn'd  below, 
Gazing  upon  the  ground,  with  thoughts  which  dare  not 
glow  ? 

Here  is  the  sentimental  mood  sketched  in  Hours 
of  Idleness,  developed  to  sublime  intensity.  But  just 
as  Hours  of  Idleness  was  followed  by  English  Bards 


404  LAW  IN  TASTE 


and  Scotch  Reviewers,  so,  in  Don  Juan,  Byron  almost 
immediately  abandons  the  monastic  impulse,  embodied 
in  Childe  Harold,  for  his  still  more  characteristic  role 
of  reckless  defiance,  and,  in  his  inflexible  opposition  to 
all  forms  of  established  authority,  seems  to  appropriate 
the  attitude  of  him  whom  Dryden  called  the  hero  of 
Paradise  Lost  and  Johnson  the  first  of  the  Whigs  : 

All  is  not  lost ;  the  unconquerable  will, 
And  study  of  revenge,  immortal  hate, 
And  courage  never  to  submit  or  yield, 
And  what  is  else  not  to  be  overcome. 

Who  does  not  hear  the  accents  of  the  lost  Arch- 
anfjel  in  this  stanza  of  Don  Juan  ? 

And  I  will  war,  at  least  in  words,  and — should 
My  chance  so  happen — deeds,  with  all  M^ho  war 

With  Thought ;  and  of  Thought's  foes  by  far  most  rude, 
Tyrants  and  sycophants  have  been  and  are. 

I  know  not  who  may  conquer  :  if  I  could 
Have  such  a  prescience,  it  should  be  no  bar 

To  this  my  plain,  sworn,  downright,  detestation 

Of  every  despotism  in  every  nation. 

If  any  proof  were  needed  of  the  universal  character 
of  Byron's  conception,  it  would  be  found  in  the 
splendid  natural  force  of  his  expression.  His  verse 
may  be  of  course  blamed,  and  justly,  for  defects  of 
execution,  for  tawdriness,  slovenliness,  negligence, 
and  obscurity ;  but,  when  all  is  said,  no  poet  equals 
him  in  the  irresistible  power  with  which  he  moulds 
ideal  forms  to  embody  inward  emotions.  His  genius 
is  above  all  things  lyrical ;  as  I  have  said,  he  uses 
epic,  dramatic,  and  satiric  forms  only  for  the  sake  of 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  405 

self-expression ;  but  the  ease  and  vigour  with  which 
he  adapts  each  in  turn  to  his  purpose  are  wonderful. 
He  is  at  home  in  every  kind  of  metre.  He  employs 
the  Spenser  stanza  for  analysis  of  feeling  and  descrip- 
tions of  scenery,  turns  the  classic  heroic  couplet  into 
a  vehicle  for  the  swift  rush  of  romantic  passion,  seizes 
on  the  soliloquy  and  blank  verse  of  the  drama,  as  the 
mirror  to  reflect  his  feeling  for  nature  and  his  loath- 
ing for  the  world,  and  transforms  the  light  mock- 
heroic  of  the  Italian  ottava  rinia  into  savage  satire 
on  English  society.  His  best  work  is  done  when  he 
can  assume  a  point  of  vantage  or  a  character  which 
allows  him  to  comment  on  himself  and  mankind, 
whether  this  be  contemplative,  as  in  Childe  Harold, 
or  cynical,  as  in  Don  Juan,  and  he  himself  is  quite 
aware  of  the  characteristic  tendency  of  his  genius. 

If  I  have  any  fault  it  is  digression, 
Leaving  my  people  to  proceed  alone, 
While  I  soliloquise  beyond  expresaion. 

As  a  rule  self-consciousness  and  soliloquy  lead  to 
affectation  ;  but  it  was  not  so  with  Byron,  whose  modes 
of  expression  are  absolutely  natural.  Theatrical  as 
his  thought  often  is,  he  was  saved  from  the  worst  of 
all  literary  vices,  partly  by  the  immense  force  of  his 
genius,  partly  by  the  excellence  of  his  literary  judg- 
ment, and  partly  also  by  his  knowledge  of  social  con- 
ventions and  language.  Whether  his  judgments  of 
the  world  and  himself  are  sound  or  not,  they  are  at 
least  sincere,  and  they  are  delivered  with  the  frank 
defiance  of  one  who  is  confident  of  having  taken  the 


4o6  LAW  IN  TASTE 


measure  of  his  audience.  In  this  respect  his  style 
differs  from  that  of  most  of  his  contemporaries,  par- 
ticularly the  Lake  School,  who  contended  against  the 
world  without  having  mixed  in  it,  thus  drawing  from 
Byron  a  criticism  which  was  not  altogether  unjust : 

You — gentlemen  !  by  dint  of  long  seclusion 
From  better  company,  have  kept  your  own 

At  Keswick,  and  through  still  continued  fusion 
Of  one  another's  minds,  at  last  are  grown 

To  deem,  as  a  most  logical  conclusion, 
That  Poesy  has  wreaths  for  you  alone. 

Completely  versed  in  the  conditions  of  the 
eighteenth  century  style,  Byron  was  able  to  harmonise 
it  with  the  opposite  tendencies  and  characteristics  of 
his  own  age,  and  his  verse  admirably  illustrates  our 
postulate  of  English  Fine  Art,  namely,  the  fusion  of 
contrary  qualities.  Macaulay  says  of  him  with  truth  : 
"  He  was  the  man  of  the  last  thirteen  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  of  the  first  twenty-three  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  He  belonged  half  to  the 
old  and  half  to  the  new  school  of  poetry.  His  per- 
sonal taste  led  him  to  the  former ;  his  thirst  for  praise 
to  the  latter ;  his  talents  were  equally  suited  to  both. 
His  fame  was  a  common  ground  on  which  the  zealots 
of  both  sides,  Gifford,  for  example,  and  Shelley,  might 
meet.  He  was  the  representative  not  of  either  literary 
party,  but  of  both  at  once,  and  of  their  conflict,  and 
of  the  victory  by  which  that  conflict  was  terminated. 
His  poetry  fills  and  measures  the  whole  of  the  vast 
interval  through  which  our  literature  has  passed  since 
the  time  of  Johnson.     It  touches  the  Essay  on  Man 


LECT.ix  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  407 

at  the   one   extremity   aud    The   Excursion   at   the 
other." 

Tennyson,  not  much  more  than  twenty  years 
younger  than  Byron,  naturally  fell  to  some  extent 
under  the  same  poetic  influences,  and  his  earliest 
published  work  which  appeared  in  the  little  volume 
called  Poems  by  Two  Brothers  (1827)  is  suffused 
with  the  colours  of  the  Byronic  after-glow.  In  the 
volume  of  his  poems  printed  in  1830  appeared  a 
composition  of  some  length  (since  suppressed)  entitled 
"Supposed  Confessions  of  a  Second-rate  Sensitive 
Mind  not  at  unity  itself,"  full  of  that  morbid  intro- 
spective spirit,  generated  by  "  the  self- torturing 
sophist  wild  Rousseau,"  which  breathes  through 
Hours  of  Idleness.  This  vein  of  self-analysis  is,  at 
a  somewhat  later  date,  worked  out  with  more  art  in 
The  Two  Voices,  and,  not  unnaturally,  it  is  accom- 
panied in  Locksley  Hall  by  an  anti- social  and 
misanthropic  mood,  almost  as  gloomy  as  Byron's  own  : 

Cursed  be  the  social  wants  that  sin  against  the  strength  of 

youth ! 
Cursed  be  the  social  lies  that  warp  us  from  the  living  truth ! 

Cursed  be  the  sickly  forms  that  err  from  honest  Nature's  rule  ! 
Cursed  be  the  gold  that  gilds  the  straiten'd  forehead  of  the 
fool! 

The    misanthropic    view  of  Nature   and    Society  is 
carried  still  further  in  Maud : 

I  keep  but  a  man  and  a  maid,  ever  ready  to  slander  and  steal ; 
I  know  it,  and  smile  a  hard-set  smile,  like  a  stoic,  or  like 
A  wiser  epicurean,  and  let  the  world  have  its  way  : 
For  nature  is  one  with  rapine,  a  harm  no  preacher  can  heal ; 


4o8  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 


The  Mayfly  is  torn  by  the  swallow,  the  sparrow  spear'd  by 

the  shrike, 
And  the  whole  little  wood  where  I  sit  is  a  world  of  plunder 

and  prey. 

From  the  soliloquising  habit  of  Bjrron,  too,  Tenny- 
son took  the  form  of  lyrical  monologue  in  character, 
in  which  he  is  fond  of  embodying  his  self-conscious 
moods.  But  when  his  modes  of  conception  and 
expression  are  more  closely  compared  with  Byron's, 
the  self-consciousness  of  each  is  seen  to  spring  from 
a  totally  different  source.  Byron's  is  personal,  the 
product  of  character,  temper,  inheritance  ;  Tennyson's 
is  reflective,  the  result  of  the  pressure  of  society  on 
the  individual  mind,  of  the  decay  of  inward  faith  in 
the  midst  of  the  weakening  of  external  creeds  and 
institutions.  As  he  says  in  the  "  Supposed  Con- 
fessions of  a  Second-rate  Sensitive  Mind  "  : 

How  sweet  to  have  a  common  faith  ! 

To  hold  a  common  scorn  of  death, 

Ajid  at  a  burial  to  hear 

The  creaking  cords  which  wound  and  eat 

Into  my  human  heart,  whene'er 

Earth  goes  to  earth,  with  grief,  not  fear. 

With  hopeful  grief,  were  passing  sweet ! 

Byron's  self- consciousness  always  expressed  itself 
in  some  form  of  action ;  Tennyson's  ends  in  reflec- 
tion.    He  says  in  the  spirit  of  Hamlet : 

0  weary  life  !     0  weary  death  ! 
0  spirit  and  heart  made  desolate  ! 
0  damned  vacillating  state  ! 

Moreover,    the   poetical   forms  which    each   poet 


J 

BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  409 


chooses  for  the  vehicles  of  his  emotion  are  radically 
opposed.  Byron  describes  himself  in  the  epic,  and 
makes  his  characters  soliloquise  of  himself  in  the  drama ; 
he  would  never  have  dramatised  his  self-consciousness 
in  a  lyric  form  as  Tennyson  does  in  Locksley  Hall 
and  Maud.  What  Byron  was  in  his  attitude  towards 
society  at  the  beginning,  that  he  remained  to  the 
end,  rebellious,  irreconcilable,  scornful,  satiric ;  the 
lyric  and  satiric  impulse,  disclosed  in  Hours  of  Idle- 
ness, exhibits  itself,  only  with  matured  power,  in 
Don  Juan.  Tennyson,  on  the  contrary,  seems  to  be 
always  advancing  in  endeavour  towards  some  point  of 
art  in  which  his  mind  may  attain  repose  and  unity  ; 
he  seeks  to  mer^e  his  own  self-consciousness  in  the 
larger  consciousness  of  society,  and  in  proportion  as 
he  approaches  to  this  external  point  of  contemplation, 
he  leaves  behind  him  the  fluid  lyric  impulse  of  his 
youth,  seeking  to  imprison  his  ideas  in  the  visible 
and  abiding  forms  peculiar  to  the  arts  of  painting  and 
sculpture.  Of  these  self-conscious  movements  of  his 
imagination  he  gives  us  in  his  poems  many  interest- 
ing autobiographical  glimpses.  How  suggestive,  for 
example,  are  the  following  lines  from  In  Memoriam — 
written  with  reference  to  the  remark  of  a  woman  that 
"  doubt  is  devil-born  " — when  read  in  connection  with 
the  interjections  of  "the  second-rate  mind  not  at 
unity  with  itself" — "  0  damned  vacillating  state  !  " 

I  know  not :  one  indeed  I  knew 

In  many  a  subtle  question  versed, 
Who  touch'd  a  jarring  lyre  at  first, 

But  ever  strove  to  make  it  tnze  : 


4IO  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Perplext  in  faith,  but  pure  in  deeds, 

At  last  he  beat  his  music  out. 

There  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds. 

And  SO  again,  in  illustration  of  the  sensitiveness 
with  which  the  poet's  self- consciousness  shrinks  or 
expands  with  the  self-consciousness  of  society,  it  is 
interesting  to  contrast  the  conclusion  of  Locksley 
Hall  with  the  conclusion  of  Maud.  The  jilted 
lover  in  the  former  cries  : 

Comes  a  vapour    from    the   margin,  blackening   over   heath 

and  holt. 
Cramming  all  the  blast  before  it,  in  its  breast  a  thunderbolt. 

Let  it  fall  on  I^ocksley  Hall,  with  rain  or  hail,  or  fire  or  snow ; 
For  the  mighty  wind  arises,  roaring  seaward,  and  I  go. 

But  the  semi-madman  of  Maud  gets  rid  of  his  "  old 
hysterical  mock-disease  "  thus  : 

And  I  stood  on  a  giant  deck  and  mix'd  my  breath 
With  a  loj'al  people  shouting  a  battle  cry, 
Till  I  saw  the  dreary  phantom  arise  and  fly 
Far  into  the  North,  and  battle,  and  seas  of  death. 

Let  it  fiame  or  fade,  and  the  war  roll  down  like  a  wind. 
We  have  proved  we  have  hearts  in  a  cause,  we  are  noble  still, 
And  myself  have  awaked,  as  it  seems,  to  the  better  mind ; 
It  is  better  to  fight  for  the  good  than  to  rail  at  the  ill ; 
I  have  felt  with  my  native  land,  I  am  one  Avith  my  kind, 
I  embrace  the  purpose  of  God,  and  the  doom  assign'd. 

But  whether  the  poet's  haunting  self-consciousness 
finds  relief  in  this  manner,  or  whether,  as  in  Locksley 
Hall  Sixty  Yea^^s  After,  it  relapses  into  something 
of   the   "old    hysterical    mock -disease,"  the    artistic 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  411 

resolve  to  arrest  the  transitory  feeling  in  a  perfect 
and  abiding  ideal  form  remains.  How  intimately 
this  poetic  impulse  is  associated  with  the  centrifugal 
movement  of  the  individual  apart  from  society  is 
shown  by  a  very  fine  passage  in  The  Palace  of  Art : 

No  nightingale  delighteth  to  prolong 

Her  low  preamble  all  alone, 
More  than  my  soul  to  hear  her  echo'd  song 
Throb  thro'  the  ribbed  stone ; 

Singing  and  murmuring  in  her  feastful  mirth, 

Joying  to  feel  herself  alive, 
Lord  over  Nature,  Lord  of  the  visible  earth, 
Lord  of  the  senses  five  ; 

Communing  with  herself  :   "  All  these  are  mine, 

And  let  the  world  have  peace  or  wars, 
'Tis  one  to  mo." 

"  I  take  possession  of  man's  mind  and  deed. 
I  care  not  what  the  sects  may  brawl. 
I  sit  as  God  holding  no  form  of  creed. 
But  contemplating  all." 

Almost  inevitably  an  imagination  thus  affected 
seeks  to  develop  in  the  art  of  poetry  those  elements 
which  are  most  akin  to  the  plastic  arts  and  to  music. 
Among  the  English  poets  Tennyson  is  the  greatest 
word-painter.  Whatever  form  of  poetry  he  attempts 
— and  he  has  attempted  all — this  tendency  is  stamped 
upon  it,  and  success  attends  him  in  proportion  as  the 
form  is  capable  of  being  used  for  sculpturesque,  or 
pictorial,  or  musical,  purposes.  The  genius  of  painting 
inspires  to  perfection  the  monologues  and  lyrical 
idylls — Tithonus,  Ulysses,  Mariana  in   the  Moated 


412  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Grange,  and  the  like — which  form  the  bulk  of  Tenny- 
son's earlier  work.  It  attains  its  meridian  in  In 
Memoriam,  where,  joined  with  the  penetrating  force 
of  intense  self- analysis,  it  succeeds  in  giving  dignity 
of  form  to  the  most  familiar  objects  and  associations. 
What  other  poet  has  ever  written  thus  of  a  picnic  ? 

Nor  less  it  pleased  in  livelier  moods, 

Beyond  the  bounding  hill  to  stray. 
And  break  the  livelong  summer  day 

With  banquet  in  the  distant  woods  ; 

Whereat  we  glanced  from  theme  to  theme, 
Discuss'd  the  books  to  love  or  hate, 
Or  touch'd  the  changes  of  the  state, 

Or  threaded  some  Socratic  dream  ; 

But  if  I  praised  the  busy  town, 

He  loved  to  rail  against  it  still, 
For  "  ground  in  yonder  social  mill 

We  rub  each  other's  angles  down, 

"  And  merge,"  he  said,  "  in  form  and  gloss 
The  picturesque  of  man  and  man." 
We  talk'd  :  the  stream  beneath  us  ran. 
The  wine-flask  lying  couch'd  in  moss. 

Or  cool'd  within  the  glooming  wave ; 

And  last,  returning  from  afar, 

Before  the  crimson-circled  star 
Had  fall'n  into  her  father's  grave, 

And  brushing  ankle-deep  in  flowers. 

We  heard  behind  the  woodbine  veil 
The  milk  that  bubbled  in  the  pail, 

And  buzzings  of  the  honied  hours. 

Analogous  to  this  power  of  word-painting  in  Tenny- 
son is  the  delight  in  novel  metrical  experiments  for  the 
purpose  of  embodying  moods  of  self-consciousness,  as  in 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  413 

Maud;  memories  of  travel,  as  in  The  Daisy ;  impres- 
sions of  character,  as  in  TTie  Northern  Farmer ;  or  the 
movement  of  ancient  rhythms,  as  in  his  imitation  of 
Latin  Alcaics  and  his  translation  of  the  T7ie  Battle  of 
B^mnanburh.  Rare,  indeed,  is  the  skill  with  which 
he  arrests  the  fugitive  impression ;  but  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  his  musical  and  pictorial  methods  only 
avail  him  so  long  as  he  confines  himself  to  the  lyrical 
sphere.  When  his  ambition  carries  him  to  the  com- 
position of  dramatic  or  epic  verse,  self-consciousness 
destroys  the  ideal  illusion,  and  fails  to  conceal  the 
labours  of  his  art.  Tennyson  is  even  less  dramatic 
than  Byron.  Marino  Faliero  and  Cain  at  least  raise 
the  idea  of  the  poet's  energetic  and  typical  personality, 
but  Queen  Mary,  and  Harold,  and  Bechet  imitate  no 
universal  idea.  The  same  is  true  of  Tennyson's  epical 
efforts.  The  Idylls  of  the  King,  for  example.  In  my 
opinion  the  poet  was  ill-inspired  in  his  attempt  to  make 
that  beautiful  and  suggestive  tour  de  force,  the  Moi'te 
d' Arthur  of  the  early  poems,  the  foundation  of  an  epic 
without  unity,  in  which  the  actions  and  characters  of 
knights  are  employed  merely  to  decorate  the  transient 
phases  of  modern  self-consciousness.  Still  more  in- 
a|)propriate  are  these  pictorial  and  metrical  effects, 
when  applied  to  heighten  and  dignify  the  familiar 
incidents  of  life.  Take,  for  example,  the  manner  in 
which  the  poet,  in  Aylmers  Field,  narrates  the  dis- 
covery by  Sir  Aylmer,  in  a  tree,  of  the  clandestine 
correspondence  between  Leolin  Averill  and  Edith 
Aylmer : 


414  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  iii 

There  the  manorial  lord  too  curiously 

Raking  in  that  millennial  touchwood-dust 

Found  for  himself  a  bitter  treasure-trove ; 

Burst  his  own  wyvern  on  the  seal,  and  read, 

Writhing,  a  letter  from  his  child,  for  which 

Came  at  the  moment  Leolin's  emissary, 

A  crippled  lad,  and  coming  turn'd  to  fly. 

But  scared  with  threats  of  jail  and  halter  gave 

To  him  that  fluster'd  his  poor  parish  wits 

The  letter  which  he  brought,  and  swore  besides 

To  play  their  go-between  as  heretofore. 

Nor  let  them  know  themselves  betray'd ;  and  then. 

Soul-stricken  at  their  kindness  to  him,  went 

Hating  his  own  lean  heart  and  miserable. 

I  venture  to  say  that  a  more  un-English  mannerism, 
in  the  form  of  narrative  poetry,  was  never  invented. 

The  poetry  of  Byron  and  Tennyson  furnishes  a 
striking  illustration  of  that  law  which  I  en- 
deavoured to  define  at  the  opening  of  my  lecture. 
Great  as  the  position  of  each  is  in  the  history  of  our 
poetry,  their  success  has  not  been  achieved  in  the 
epic  and  dramatic  departments  of  the  art.  They 
have  not  enriched  our  imagination  with  those  ideal 
scenes  of  action  and  passion,  which  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  society  the  poet,  breathing  the  atmosphere 
of  common  beliefs  and  customs,  is  able  to  call  up 
before  the  mind  of  a  public  audience.  Their  task  has 
been  accomplished  in  the  lyrical  sphere ;  it  has  been 
theirs  to  find  the  metrical  form  fitted  to  express 
emotions  which,  though  universal,  find  as  a  rule  no 
outlet  in  the  life  of  society,  and  remain  buried 
in  the  secret  consciousness  of  the  individual  soul. 
Byron's  power  lies  in  the  intense  force  and  natural- 


LECT.ix  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  413 

ness  of  the  language  in  which  he  communicates  his 
own  consciousness  to  the  reader;  Tennyson's  in  the 
art  with  which  he  uses  words  so  as  to  place  the  most 
subtle  movements  of  the  reader's  consciousness  before 
the  imagination  in  an  almost  visible  form. 

It  is  by  virtue  of  this  representative  form  that 
both  poets  satisfy  the  law  of  the  art  as  defined  by 
Aristotle.  Though  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to 
test  the  presence  of  the  Universal  in  lyric  poetry  in 
the  same  way  as  in  epic  and  dramatic  poetry,  by 
comparing  the  imagery  of  the  poet  with  the  life 
of  Nature  itself,  yet,  viewed  in  a  certain  aspect,  the 
imitation  of  self  -  consciousness  may  assume  an  ex- 
ternal shape.  If  the  lyric  poet  does  not,  like  the 
dramatist,  "  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,"  he  can, 
nevertheless,  "  show  the  very  age  and  body  of  the 
time  his  form  and  pressure."  And  as,  by  the 
Aristotelian  canon,  the  art  of  the  dramatist  is  seen 
in  the  representation  of  ideas  of  action  and  passion 
which  seem  always  natural,  always  probable,  so  the 
art  of  the  lyric  poet  is  felt  by  his  touching  those 
sentiments  and  emotions  which  are  common  to 
society,  or  have  been  common  to  it  in  some  stage 
of  its  historic  life.  Judged  by  this  standard  both 
Byron  and  Tennyson  will  be  found  to  satisfy  the 
law  of  their  art.  Each  in  his  own  way  is  a 
thoroughly  representative  poet.  Byron  expresses 
the  passions  of  a  ruling  caste,  the  impulse  of  revolt 
widely  felt  in  the  last  days  of  the  ascendency  of 
that  great  and  powerful  class,  which  directed  the 
government    of    England    after    the    Revolution    of 


4i6  LAW  IN  TASTE 


1688.  Blended  in  his  verse  there  is  perceived  a 
conflict  of  opposing  tendencies,  the  desperation  of  a 
Catiline  and  the  patriotism  of  a  Cicero,  the  selfish- 
ness of  the  debauched  and  gambling  companions  of 
the  Prince  Regent,  and  the  public  spirit  of  the  men 
who  defended  the  liberties  of  Europe  against  the 
armies  of  Napoleon.  Who  does  not  feel  the  self- 
conscious  emotion  of  aristocratic  English  society  in 
the  speech  which  Byron  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Marino  Faliero,  when  urged  to  destroy  the  Venetian 
Senate  ?     Isaac  Bertuccio  says  to  him  : 

You  passed  their  sentence,  and  it  is  a  just  one. 

Faliero  replies : 

Aye,  so  it  seems  and  so  it  is  to  you ; 

You  are  a  patriot,  plebeian  Gracchus — 

The  rebel's  oracle,  the  people's  tribune — 

I  blame  you  not — you  act  in  your  vocation  ; 

They  smote  you,  and  oppressed  you,  and  despised  you  : 

So  they  have  me :  but  you  ne'er  spoke  with  them  ; 

You  never  broke  their  bread,  nor  shared  their  salt ; 

You  never  had  their  wine-cup  at  your  lips  ; 

You  grew  not  up  with  them,  nor  laughed,  nor  wept, 

Nor  held  a  revel  in  their  company  ; 

Ne'er  smiled  to  see  them  smile,  nor  claimed  their  smile 

In  social  interchange  for  yours,  nor  trusted. 

Nor  wore  them  in  your  heart  of  hearts,  as  I  have. 

This  is  not  good  dramatic  poetry,  for  nothing  can  be 
more  improbable  than  that  one  conspirator  should  so 
address  another,  but,  regarded  as  an  ideal  lyrical 
reflection  of  the  sentiments  towards  society  of 
Byron  and  a  large  number  of  his  contemporaries 
in  the   period   just  antecedent   to    the  first  Reform 


LECT.  IX  BYRON  AND  TENNYSON  417 

Bill,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  finer  verse.  And 
the  imitation  of  these  emotions  will  always  be 
interesting  to  those  who  care  for  the  history  of  their 
country. 

Tennyson's  lyrical  mode  of  expressing  social  self- 
consciousness  is  equally  characteristic.  His  verse 
does  not  reflect,  like  Byron's,  the  personal  discontent 
of  a  class,  but  rather  the  inward  sufi'ering  of  the 
individual  who  cannot  bring  his  mind  into  harmony 
with  the  ideals  of  a  free  and  expanding  community. 
The  self-consciousness  he  represents  is  that  of  a  large 
portion  of  educated  society,  caused  by  the  change  from 
oligarchical  to  democratic  self-government  eff'ected 
by  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832.  As  a  poet,  sensitively 
alive  to  all  outward  change,  he  is  aware  of  the 
material  growth  of  the  nation  in  numbers,  in  wealth, 
and  in  all  the  external  arts  and  refinements  of  life. 
At  the  same  time,  as  an  individual,  his  imagination 
fails  to  find  satisfaction  in  the  public  life  of  the  nation, 
expressed  in  the  acts  of  its  government,  while  his  own 
consciousness  is  distracted  by  a  perpetual  analysis  of 
the  beliefs  and  customs  on  which  the  historic  character 
of  society  is  founded.  This  conflict  between  the  spirit 
of  action  and  the  spirit  of  reflection  has  stimulated 
the  genius  of  every  prominent  English  writer  in  the 
last  two  generations  :  outlets  of  expression  have  been 
sought  for  it  in  the  self-torturing  prose  of  Sartor 
Resartus;  in  the  analytical  psychology  of  Middle- 
march;  in  the  quasi-dramatic  monologues  of  Men 
and  Women.  But  as  it  is  in  its  essence  self- 
conscious,  the  true  form  for  its  utterance  would  seem 

2e 


4i8  LAW  IN  TASTE 


to  be  lyrical ;  and  uowhere,  I  think,  has  a  lyrical 
vehicle  been  found  for  it  equal  in  harmony,  in 
lucidity,  in  repose,  in  dignity,  in  all  those  condi- 
tions which  Fine  Art  demands,  to  the  verse  of 
In  Memoriam. 


X 

CONCLUSION 

Now  that  I  have  come  to  the  close  of  this  series  of 
lectures,  it  only  remains  for  me  to  look  back  over 
the  ground  that  has  been  covered,  and  to  sum  up 
the  results  of  the  argument  that  I  have  endeavoured 
to  develop.  But  before  doing  so  it  is  perhaps  not 
unnatural  for  me  on  this,  the  last  occasion  on  which 
I  shall  have  the  honour  of  addressing  you,  to  review 
for  a  moment  the  general  circumstances  of  the  period, 
during  which  I  have  held  the  Chair  of  Poetry — cir- 
cumstances which  have  doubtless  exercised  an  un- 
conscious influence  in  directing  me  to  the  choice  of 
my  subject,  and  I  suppose  also  in  shaping  to  some 
extent  the  tendency  of  my  thought.  By  a  curious 
coincidence  I  was  chosen  Professor  of  Poetry  just 
after  a  general  election  had  decided  an  issue  of  the 
gravest  importance  to  the  fortunes  of  the  United 
Kingdom  ;  I  lay  down  my  oftice  after  another 
general  election  has  given  the  verdict  of  the  people 
on  a  policy  which,  for  good  or  ill,  must  be  regarded 
as  a  turning-point  in  the  destinies  of  the  British 
Empire.  Unless  we  are  to  look  on  art  as  an  abstract 
almost  inhuman  region,  remote  from  the  actions  and 


420  LAW  IN  TASTE 


emotions  of  the  living  world,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
feel  that  great  events  like  these  must  reverberate  in 
the  spiritual  sphere,  and  perhaps  awake  fresh  move- 
ments of  taste  and  imagination. 

By  another  coincidence,  not  less  noteworthy,  I 
bring  my  term  of  office  to  an  end  with  the  close 
of  a  century.  It  may  be  the  effect  of  fancy  or 
superstition,  but  we  are  certainly  moved  by  a 
common  instinct  to  look  on  each  cycle  of  a  hundred 
years  as  marking  by  itself  a  definite  stage  in  the 
course  of  human  affairs.  Successive  centuries  present 
themselves  under  separate  and  distinctive  aspects, 
and  seem  to  carry  forward  the  stages  of  the  world's 
history  like  the  connected  acts  of  a  drama.  If  we 
turn  our  imagination  back  to  the  time  when  the 
distinctively  modern  era  begins,  we  see  in  the  six- 
teenth century  the  great  movements  of  the  Renais- 
sance, and  the  Reformation  at  work  to  undermine  the 
Catholic  fabric  of  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire,  which 
constituted  the  order  of  mediaeval  Europe,  and  to 
lay  the  foundations  of  the  Balance  of  Power,  which 
holds  together  the  society  of  our  own  times.  Here 
we  have  the  opening  of  the  drama — the  Seo-t?  as 
Aristotle  would  have  called  it,  or  the  evolution  of  the 
situation.  A  second  act  seems  to  begin  with  the 
seventeenth  century,  as  we  watch  the  progress  of 
the  disintegrating  movement  in  the  heart  of  each 
nation,  and  the  struggle  of  rival  monarchies,  repre- 
senting separate  national  interests,  to  obtain  the 
preponderance  of  power  within  the  newly  balanced 
European   system.       The  eighteenth   century  is  the 


LECT.  X  CONCLUSION  421 

third  act,  in  which  the  structural  interest  of  the 
drama  reaches  its  climax  :  from  the  dawn  of  the 
century  to  its  last  decade  the  solvent  of  Philosophy 
continues  to  loosen  the  exterior  framework  of  Feudal 
Absolutism,  raised  up  by  the  joint  labours  of  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,  till  it  is  on 
the  point  of  toppling  to  its  fall  in  the  French 
Revolution. 

The  fourth  act  brings  us  to  the  close  of  our  own 
century.  And  as  we  look  back  on  its  long  scene  of 
change  and  transformation,  we  recognise  that  the 
master  passion  of  the  dying  era  has  been  Liberty, 
Liberty,  in  the  first  place,  for  peoples.  From  the 
carnivals  of  the  first  Revolution,  in  the  streets  of  Paris, 
down  to  the  last  earthquake  shocks  of  1848,  races  and 
nationalities  start  into  infant  life,  and  strive  after 
ideals  as  yet  but  dimly  understood  amid  the  chaotic 
struggle  for  existence.  Liberty  is  aimed  at,  in  the 
second  place,  for  the  individual.  In  one  way  or 
another  the  tendency  of  the  century,  at  any  rate  the 
first  half  of  it,  has  been  to  seek  to  confine  the  func- 
tions of  the  State  within  the  narrowest  possible  limits, 
so  as  to  allow  the  individual  the  fullest  play  in 
developing  his  capacities  as  he  chooses.  Each  in- 
dividual must  have  complete  freedom  of  action. 
Every  householder  must  have  his  individual  share  in 
the  government  of  the  country.  The  workman  must 
be  freed  from  all  restraints  upon  his  right  to  sell  his 
labour  to  whom,  at  the  place  where,  and  at  the  time 
when,  he  chooses.  The  merchant,  freed  from  the  tram- 
mels of  Navigation  Laws  and  protective  duties,  has  to 


422  LAW  IN  TASTE 


think  simply  and  solely  of  buying  in  the  cheapest 
market,  and  selling  in  the  dearest. 

Again,  the  individual  must  enjoy  the  largest  liberty 
of  thought ;  the  religious  sectarian  is  not  only  to  be 
permitted  the  freedom  of  worshipping  undisturbed  in 
his  own  way,  but  of  attacking,  if  he  \vishes,  the  founda- 
tion of  the  corporate  Religion  of  the  State ;  the 
advanced  thinker  must  be  free  to  push  his  intellectual 
theories  in  public  up  to  that  dim  and  doubtful  point, 
at  which  the  expression  of  obscenity  or  blasphemy  may 
seem  to  imperil  the  well-being  of  society.  And  this 
because  Liberty  is  regarded — and  in  a  sense  rightly 
regarded — as  being  an  end  in  itself;  so  that  the  aim 
of  philosophy  in  England,  at  least  up  to  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  might  be  summed  up  in  the 
phrase  laisser  faire,  "  let  be,"  and  has  consisted  rather 
in  preventing  the  State  from  interfering  with  the 
liberty  of  the  individual  than  in  directing  its  energies 
to  a  constructive  social  end. 

Those  who  can  carry  back  their  thoughts  as  far  as 
I  can  will  remember  the  enthusiasm  with  which  young 
University  men,  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  decades  of 
the  century,  embraced  the  doctrines  of  the  most 
influential  teacher  of  this  school,  John  Stuart  Mill, 
especially  as  expounded  in  his  book  on  Liberty.  Their 
thoughts  and  feelings  were  those  described  by  Words- 
worth— pre-eminently  the  poet  of  Individualism — as 
prevailing  at  the  opening  of  the  Revolutionary  era : 

0  pleasant  exercise  of  hope  and  joy, 

For  mighty  were  the  auxiliars  which  then  stood 

Upon  our  side,  us  who  were  strong  in  love. 


LECT.  X  CONCLUSION  423 

Bliss  was  in  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive ; 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven. 

And  the  ideals  of  young  Oxford  were  those  of  which 

the  same  poet  speaks  afterwards  in  a  passage  less 

well  known : 

What  delight, 
How  glorious,  in  self-knowledge  and  self-rule, 
To  look  through  all  the  frailties  of  the  world, 
And  with  a  resolute  mastery,  shaking  off 
Infirmities  of  nature,  time,  and  place, 
Build  social  upon  personal  Liberty, 
Which  to  the  blind  restraints  of  general  laws 
Superior,  magisterially  adopts 
One  guide,  the  light  of  circumstances,  flashed 
Upon  an  independent  intellect ! 
Thus  expectation  rose  again  :  thus  hope, 
From  her  first  ground  expelled,  grew  proud  once  more. 
Oft  as  my  thoughts  were  turned  to  human  kind, 
I  scorned  indifference,  but  inflamed  ^v^th  thirst 
Of  a  secure  intelligence,  and,  sick 
Of  other  longing,  I  pursued  what  seemed 
A  more  exalted  Nature ;  wished  that  Man 
Should  start  out  of  his  earthy  worm-like  state, 
And  spread  abroad  the  wings  of  Liberty, 
Lord  of  himself  and  undisturbed  delights. 

Such  were  the  aspirations  of  that  individual 
self-consciousness,  generated  by  the  atmosphere  of 
Kevolutionary  liberty,  which  prevailed  till  about 
the  year  1870.  Then  came  the  necessary  reaction. 
From  the  exaggerated  hopes  of  human  progress  men 
passed  into  a  fit  of  revolutionary  pessimism,  and  the 
world  of  Culture  began  to  exchange  the  somewhat 
bourgeois  Liberalism  of  Mill  for  the  gloomy  dis- 
dain of  Schopenhauer.     Nevertheless,  throughout  the 


424  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  iii 


remainder  of  the  century  individual  liberty  has  still 
asserted  itself  as  the  end  and  goal  of  existence, 
individual  consciousness  as  the  standard  of  all  in- 
tellectual measurement ;  only  instead  of  looking 
forward  with  Wordsworth  to  political  Liberty  as  the 
aim  of  human  society,  the  Decadents,  the  Symbolists, 
the  votaries  of  the  Fin  du  Siecle,  and  other  philo- 
sophical sects  which  have  sprung  out  of  the  study 
of  Schopenhauer,  now  aspire  to  the  freedom  of  Art 
and  Imagination,  as  a  kind  of  heaven  of  self-culture, 
in  which  each  man  can,  if  he  thinks  fit,  find  a  refuge 
and  solace  from  the  evils  of  existence.  From  the 
enthusiastic  dreams  of  Revolutionary  progress  we 
have  turned  to  the  opiates  of  intellectual  Buddhism. 

Men  of  sense  and  manliness  will  not  allow  them- 
selves to  be  infected  with  the  despair  of  fantastic 
sects ;  pessimism  is  merely  the  unbalanced  recoil 
from  an  exaggerated  optimism,  not  warranted  by 
facts  and  experience.  One  of  the  greatest  benefits 
of  increased  individual  liberty  has  been  that  it  has 
stimulated  the  conscience  of  society ;  and  the  vast 
development  of  a  free  press,  while  it  perplexes  us 
with  the  multiformity  of  facts  and  opinions  converg- 
ing on  all  sides  upon  our  consciousness,  enables  us  to 
face  these  in  a  spirit  free  from  prejudice.  No  right- 
thinking  man  has  given  up  his  belief  in  the 
advantages  of  rational  and  constitutional  liberty  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  every  sound  reasoner  is  much  more 
ready  than  he  was  to  acknowledge  that  Liberty  itself 
is  not  the  solution  of  human  ills  ;  that  much  more  is 
to  be  said  than  was  supposed  for  such  old  authoritative 


CONCLUSION  425 


methods  of  dealing  with  men  and  things  as  were 
not  long  ago  accounted  relics  of  benighted  barbarism  ; 
that,  in  fact,  the  remedy  of  laisser  faire,  of  letting 
things  go,  of  leaving  each  man  as  a  separate  unit  to 
think,  speak,  and  do  as  he  likes,  however  simple  and 
attractive  it  seemed  in  the  outset,  has  itself  been  the 
cause  of  a  thousand  difficulties,  which  require  to  be 
dealt  with  on  quite  another  principle. 

It  is  well  to  look  at  concrete  examples  of  these 
truths,  in  order  to  realise  exactly  wherein  lies  the 
fallacy  of  the  doctrine  of  laissei'  faire.  Take  the 
philosophy  of  the  Manchester  School — why  has  not 
Cobden's  prophecy  been  fulfilled,  that,  if  the  principle 
of  Free  Trade  were  once  proclaimed,  it  would  be 
universally  adopted  ?  Is  it  not  plain  that  Cobden, 
regarding  the  world  as  if  it  consisted  only  of  a  number 
of  money-making  units,  left  out  of  his  calculation 
most  important  factors  ?  On  the  external  side  he 
omitted  national  organisation  and  the  European 
Balance  of  Power,  and,  on  the  spiritual  side,  the  passion 
of  envy  and  the  mutual  antagonism  of  class  interests  ; 
he  formed  therefore  quite  a  wrong  estimate  of  the 
strength  of  the  forces  which  have  resulted  in  the  ideals 
of  Protection  and  Socialism. 

liOok  again  at  the  principle  of  laisser  faire  in  its 
operation  within  the  sphere  of  Keligion.  How  has  it 
worked  in  France,  the  classic  land  of  Revolution, 
where  the  doctrine  of  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity, 
when  first  proclaimed,  was  understood  to  mean,  in 
spiritual  matters,  that  each  individual  was  free  to 
think  as    he   chose  ?     At   the    present   moment    the 


426  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Waldeck- Rousseau  Ministry,  whicli  is  supposed  to 
reflect  in  its  composition  all  shades  of  Republicanism, 
has  proclaimed  that,  though  the  doctrine  still  applies 
to  everybody  who  chooses  to  restrict  his  active 
energies  within  the  sphere  of  private  life,  it  must  be 
so  interpreted  as  to  exclude  from  the  service  of  the 
State  every  man  whose  character  and  opinions  have 
been  formed  in  a  place  of  religious  education.  I  am 
not  so  presumptuous  as  to  cast  obloquy  on  the 
legislation  of  a  foreign  state,  with  the  inner  concerns 
of  which  no  Englishman  has  a  right  to  interfere  :  I 
merely  wish  to  show  how  the  doctrine  of  laisser /aire 
has  been  qualified  in  practice,  and  to  call  your 
attention  to  the  practical  rejection  by  French  Liberals 
of  their  old  ideal  :  "A  public  career  open  to  all  the 
talents." 

In  the  sphere  of  imagination  Ave  find  a  phrase 
exactly  analogous  to  the  phrase  of  laisser  faire  in 
commerce  and  politics  :  De  gustihus  no7i  est  dispu- 
tandum.  The  soundness  of  this  maxim  was  some 
months  ago  asserted  by  a  leader  of  English  thought 
and  action,  justly  exercising  great  influence  over  the 
opinions  of  his  countrymen,  and  I  doubt  not  that  he 
arrived  at  his  conclusion  from  his  observation  of  the 
multiplicity  and  self-contradiction  of  modern  tastes, 
and  the  complete  absence  of  any  recognised  standard 
of  judgment  in  contemporary  literature.  But  in  the 
first  place,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  this  state  of 
anarchy  did  not  always  exist ;  it  is,  in  fact,  itself  the 
result  of  a  reaction  against  the  absolute  and  authorita- 
tive method  of  criticism,  which  used  to  be  applied  to 


CONCLUSION  427 


works  of  art  by  men  of  taste  in  almost  all  European 
countries  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  revolt,  in 
the  name  of  Liberty,  against  the  classical  conventions 
accepted  as  a  starting-point  by  the  critics  of  that  age, 
has  ended  in  a  demand  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
artist  from  all  rules  whatever.  But  as  to  this  we 
have  to  observe  that  the  violent  assertion  of  individual 
liberty  is  one  of  the  inconsistencies  of  human  nature : 
men  are  not  content  to  differ.  Look  at  the  antagonism 
between  the  Classicists  and  the  Romanticists  in  the 
early  part  of  the  century,  between  the  Naturalists  and 
the  Impressionists  in  the  latter  half ;  how  idle  is  it  to 
say  that  there  should  be  no  disputing  about  taste,  when 
men  dispute,  and  will  continue  to  dispute,  about  it 
every  hour  of  their  lives  !  If  they  reject  the  technical 
standard  imposed  on  them  by  authority,  they  erect 
a  metaphysical  authority  for  themselves,  and  seek  to 
impose  this  on  as  large  a  circle  of  true  believers  as 
they  can  rally  to  the  worship  of  their  particular 
Cult. 

We  have  then  to  recognise  the  existing  condition  of 
things  :  there  is  now  a  general  consciousness — we  may 
almost  call  it  a  consciousness  of  the  State — that  the 
problems  with  which  we  are  obliged  to  deal  must  be 
considered,  with  a  view,  not  so  much  to  enlarging 
the  liberty  of  the  individual,  as  to  promoting  the 
welfare  of  society.  Granted  that  the  development 
of  all  the  faculties  of  the  human  intellect  is  good  in 
itself,  the  result  will  not  be  good,  unless  these  energies 
are  directed  to  the  promotion  of  some  social  end.  It  is 
perceived  that  the  task  of  the  new  century  will  be  to 


428  LAW  IN  TASTE 


discover  what  St.  James  in  his  Epistle  calls  "  the 
perfect  law  of  liberty,"  the  discernment  of  design  in 
the  constitution  and  tendency  of  things,  which  is 
always  being  more  or  less  defeated  by  the  corruption 
of  human  nature.  And  hence,  just  as  in  religion 
and  politics  so  in  the  sphere  of  taste,  we  are  bound 
to  examine  whether  there  be  not  an  eternal  law, 
above  and  beyond  the  aesthetic  perceptions  of  the 
individual,  binding  the  poet  and  painter  to  direct 
their  conceptions  towards  some  social  end,  which 
must  be  understood  alike  by  artist  and  critic  before 
either  can  produce  or  judge  a  work  of  Fine  Art.  To 
search  for  and  define  this  law  has  been  my  object  in 
the  series  of  lectures  1  am  bringing  to  a  close,  and  my 
last  words  shall  be  devoted  to  reminding  you  of  the 
course  we  have  taken. 

I  pointed  out,  in  the  first  place,  the  existence  of  that 
general  law,  or  prevailing  instinct,  in  human  nature, 
on  which  Aristotle  bases  his  reasoning  about  Fine  Art, 
the  motion  of  the  spirit,  that  is  to  say,  which,  on  the 
one  hand,  impels  the  artist  to  put  the  idea  of  his  own 
mind  into  his  imitation  of  Nature,  and,  on  the  other, 
justifies  the  critic  in  requiring  that  the  artistic 
imitation  shall  express  the  general  sense  of  what 
ought  to  be.  This  is  Aristotle's  Law  of  the  Uni- 
versal ;  it  is  founded  on  the  consideration  that 
all  human  beings,  however  great  their  individual 
varieties,  are  constituted  fundamentally  in  the  same 
way,  and  therefore  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  artist  to 
be  acquainted,  not  only  with  the  workings  of  his  own 
imagination,  but  with  the  imaginative   expectations 


CONCLUSION  429 


of  men  as  such.  The  validity  of  this  law  is  proved 
equally  by  its  theoretical  certainty,  and  by  the  fact 
that  it  has  been  obeyed  by  all  the  greatest  artists  of 
the  world ;  so  that  the  kind  of  pleasure  which  is 
felt  semper,  uhique,  ah  omnibus,  becomes  necessarily 
the  standard  to  which  every  work,  claiming  to  be  one 
of  Fine  Art,  is  brought  for  the  determination  of  its 
value. 

The  definition  of  the  Law  of  the  Universal,  how- 
ever, only  carries  us  to  a  point  at  which  our  minds 
are  steadied  with  a  belief  that,  amid  the  iufinity  of 
tastes  and  opinions,  there  is  a  stable  foundation  of 
judgment.  We  are  immediately  confronted  with  the 
further  fact  that  each  great  master- work  of  genius 
has  a  life  of  its  own,  distinguishing  it  from  every 
other  work  of  genius  that  the  world  possesses.  Are 
we  to  conclude  from  this  that  genius  is  a  law  unto 
itself,  and  not  to  be  made  subject  to  any  discoverable 
law  of  art  ?  By  no  means  :  for  that  would  destroy  the 
validity  of  the  Law  of  the  Universal.  The  fact  is 
explained  when  we  consider  that,  though  the  Uni- 
versal is  something  absolutely  existing  in  itself,  it 
can  only  be  reflected  through  the  medium  of  minds 
differing  in  constitution  and  character.  Besides  the 
Law  of  the  Universal  noted  by  Aristotle,  we  have  to 
recognise  the  existence  of  another  law,  the  operation 
of  which  Aristotle  himself  did  not  observe,  and  indeed 
had  no  opportunity  of  observing,  the  Law  of  National 
Character.  By  this  1  mean  the  social  instinct  which 
compels  the  artist  unconsciously  to  individualise  his 
idea  of  the  Universal  in  the  light  of  the  race  tendencies, 


430  LAW  IN  TASTE 


the  methods  of  education,  and  the  political  history  and 
character  of  the  nation  to  which  he  belongs.  In  so  far 
as  his  view  of  the  Universal  represents  faithfully  the 
sum  of  the  national  life,  the  man  is  a  great  painter  or 
poet,  and  his  work  becomes  a  monumental  standard  by 
reference  to  which  the  quality  of  other  artistic  work  pro- 
duced in  his  nation  can  be  judged.  But  in  order  that 
the  critic  may  be  able  to  declare  and  apply  this  Law  of 
National  Character,  he  must,  by  means  of  conscious 
analysis,  investigate  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  forces 
by  which  the  artist  has  been  unconsciously  inspired, 
observe  the  modes  in  which  these  operate  at  different 
periods  and  in  different  nations,  and  finally  judge  in 
what  respect  each  work  of  Fine  Art  is  a  faithful 
reflection  of  the  life  of  the  society  out  of  which  it 
springs. 

I  have  endeavoured  in  several  successive  lectures  to 
illustrate  the  actual  existence  and  operation  of  the  Law 
of  National  Character.  I  have  shown  the  perman- 
ence of  the  four  great  forces — Catholicism,  Feudalism, 
Humanism,  and  Protestantism — by  which  the  course 
of  life  in  European  nations  has  been  determined,  and 
the  different  way  in  which  they  have  operated  in 
each  nation  according  to  the  character  of  the  people  ; 
and  further,  how  the  bent  of  the  national  character 
and  history  has  been  in  each  country  reflected  in  the 
course  of  the  national  poetry.  We  have  seen,  for 
example,  how  the  French  character  seems  to  have 
given  a  definite  direction  to  French  history  in  striking 
contrast  with  that  of  Germany,  and  how  the  English 
character,  as  manifested  in  history,  differs  from  them 


CONCLUSION  431 


both  :  we  have  noted  with  what  rare  representative 
fidelity  poets  like  Dante,  Chaucer,  Milton,  Moliere, 
La  Fontaine,  Goethe,  and  Heine,  reflect  the  character 
of  their  countrymen,  and  how  their  works  may  be 
taken  as  the  abstract  and  brief  chronicles  of  their 
time. 

Phenomena  so  regular,  so  invariable,  as  those  which 
I  have  illustrated  in  my  lectures  ought,  I  think,  to 
furnish  sufficient  proof  of,  at  least ;  the  unconscious 
operation  of  the  two  great  Laws  of  Taste.  But  it  may 
be  asked  :  Granting  their  existence,  can  these  laws  be 
consciously  applied  ?  Can  we,  when  we  are  judging 
of  a  newly-created  picture  or  poem,  submit  it  to  the 
practical  test  of  law  so  as  to  decide  with  any  confidence 
as  to  its  possession  of  permanent  qualities  ?  I  think 
we  can,  on  certain  conditions.  The  first,  and  the  most 
indispensable,  is  the  acknowledgment  of  the  principle 
of  Authority.  We  must  allow  the  existence  of  law  in 
an  external  form — that  is  to  say,  in  the  work  of  the 
greatest  artists,  not  because  these  have  in  an  arbitrary 
manner  created  the  law,  but  because  the  universal 
and  enduring  pleasure  which  their  work  afibrds  is  a 
sufficient  proof  that  they  have  obeyed  it.  Their 
work  is  therefore  to  be  studied  in  a  liberal  and 
intelligent  spirit,  in  order  that  we  may  discover  the 
reason  of  their  method  and  procedure,  which  the 
method  of  all  genuine  artists  is  bound  to  resemble, 
though  not  slavishly  to  reproduce. 

When  the  source  of  authority  has  been  recog- 
nised in  principle,  it  should  be  practically  used  in 
education.     Besides  collecting  the  law  of  art  from  the 


432  LAW  IN  TASTE 


practice  of  the  greatest  artists,  we  must  also  study  it 
in  the  treatises  of  those  who  have  most  scientifically 
declared  it — that  is  to  say,  of  the  most  philosophical 
critics.  The  head  and  source  of  this  study  is  to  be 
souo-ht  in  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  not  for  the  reason 
that  made  the  scholars  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  turn 
tx)  the  authority  of  Aristotle,  as  being  an  absolute 
Dictator  in  the  sphere  of  taste,  but  because  he  was  the 
first  to  investigate  by  analysis  the  imaginative  prin- 
ciples underlying  the  creations  of  the  most  artistically 
constituted  of  all  races,  so  that  the  elementary  condi- 
tions of  fine  art  are  more  clearly  defined  in  his  treatise 
than  anywhere  else.  The  long  and  persistent  misin- 
terpretation of  Aristotle's  meaning  was,  it  is  true,  the 
cause  of  much  artistic  aberration  in  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries ;  but  the  patient 
labours  of  modern  scholars  have  removed  the  old 
stumbling  -  blocks,  and  any  English  reader,  who 
studies  the  Poetics  with  the  aid  afforded  him  by  the 
admirable  essays  of  Professor  Butcher,  may  now  make 
himself  acquainted  with  all  that  is  essential  in  the 
Theory  of  Fine  Art. 

Though  the  Law  of  the  Universal  can  be  most 
thoroughly  studied  in  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  the 
student  of  taste  ought  not  to  let  this  treatise  mono- 
polise his  attention.  The  Law  of  National  Character 
has  to  be  collected  from  other  critical  sources.  No 
doubt  almost  all  Aristotle's  critical  successors  into 
quite  modern  times  have  looked  at  the  Universal  more 
or  less  through  his  reasoning ;  but  most  of  them, 
in  so  far  as  they  have  been  men  of  original  thought, 


CONCLUSION  433 


have  made  some  contribution  of  value  to  Criticism, 
derived  from  the  peculiar  character  and  complexion 
of  the  society  to  which  they  have  belonged.  Roman, 
Florentine,  French,  German,  and  English — Quintilian, 
Dante,  Boileau,  Lessing,  Johnson,  and  many  others — 
have  formed  their  own  characteristic  idea  of  the  Law 
of  the  Universal ;  and  if  any  one  desires  to  satisfy  him- 
self of  the  identity  and  permanence  of  the  problems  of 
taste  from  the  dawn  of  Greek  civilisation  downwards, 
he  will  find  the  subject  exhaustively  treated  in  the 
excellent  History  of  Criticism,  of  which  the  first 
volume  has  recently  been  published  by  Professor 
Saintsbury.  It  is  certain  that  a  critic  who  comes  to 
the  judgment  of  a  modern  work  of  imagination 
equipped  with  the  knowledge  of  the  varied  opera- 
tions of  the  universal  Law  of  Rhetoric  need  not  be 
doubtful  of  his  right  to  decide  with  authority. 

You  will  see  that  the  authority  in  taste  for  which 
I  am  pleading  is  something  quite  different  from  the 
authority  of  an  Academy.  The  Italian  Academies 
of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the  French  Academy 
were  simply  assemblies  of  representative  men  who 
discussed  points  of  taste  among  themselves,  and  laid 
down  rules  in  an  arbitrary  manner  which  carried  with 
them  just  so  much  conventional  authority  as  was 
due  to  the  collective  agreement  of  able  and  learned 
scholars.  But  almost  all  of  them  regarding  the 
reasoning  of  Aristotle  aa  axiomatic,  and  their  misin- 
terpretation of  the  text  of  the  Poetics  being  frequent, 
the    rules   and    regulations  which   they  endeavoured 

to  impose  upon  the  taste  of  the  world  were  devoid 

2f 


434  LAW  IN  TASTE  part  hi 


of  a  really  rational  basis.  There  is  nothing  a  priori 
or  abstract  in  the  critical  method  I  have  suggested. 
The  two  Laws  we  have  been  considering  are  founded 
in  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind ;  their  opera- 
tion is  discovered  by  inductions  from  observation  and 
experience.  The  only  surrender  of  liberty  demanded 
from  the  individual  taste  is,  in  the  first  place,  the 
suspension  of  judgment  till  the  aesthetic  perception 
has  been  justly  trained,  and,  in  the  second  place,  a 
submission  of  the  intellect,  in  the  early  stages  of  its 
schooling,  to  the  judgment  of  the  world  on  the  works 
of  art  deemed  most  worthy  of  admiration.  When  the 
judging  faculty  has  been  disciplined  to  view  things 
in  all  their  bearings,  and  has  become  robust  and 
mature,  the  mind  resumes  its  native  liberty,  and  is 
free  to  revise  its  early  decisions.  Such  is  the  course 
of  what  has  been  well  called  Humanism  in  Education. 
I  am  well  aware  that  the  recognition  of  lawful 
authority  in  the  sphere  of  imagination  is  not  likely 
to  be  attained  without  a  painful  effort.  The  passion 
for  novelty  in  the  human  breast ;  the  instinct  of 
democracy  which  makes  the  majority  of  the  moment 
the  supreme  Court  of  appeal ;  commercial  interest 
which  finds  its  account  in  following  the  law  of 
demand  and  supply  ;  all  these  influences  favour  the 
assertion  of  unrestricted  liberty  of  taste.  But  the 
dangers  to  civilisation  and  refinement,  arising  out 
of  the  present  anarchical  condition  of  things,  ought 
to  show  the  lovers  of  true  liberty  the  necessity  of 
rallying  round  an  authoritative  standard  of  taste. 
"  I  do  not  think,"  says  Sir  Richard  Jebb,  in  his  lecture 


CONCLUSION  435 


on  Humanism  in  Education,  "  there  is  any  exaggera- 
tion in  what  Mr.  Froude  said  thirteen  years  ago,  that 
if  we  ever  lose  those  studies  our  national  taste  and 
the  tone  of  our  national  intellect  will  suffer  a  serious 
decline.  Classical  studies  help  to  preserve  sound 
standards  of  literature.  It  is  not  difficult  to  lose 
such  standards,  even  for  a  nation  with  the  highest 
material  civilisation,  with  abounding  mental  activity, 
and  with  a  great  literature  of  its  own.  It  is 
peculiarly  easy  to  do  so  in  days  when  the  lighter 
and  more  ephemeral  kinds  of  writing  form  for  many 
people  the  staple  of  daily  reading.  The  fashions  of 
the  hour  may  start  a  movement  not  in  the  best 
direction,  which  may  go  on  until  the  path  is  difficult 
to  retrace.  The  humanities,  if  they  cannot  prevent 
such  a  movement,  can  do  something  to  temper  and 
counteract  it ;  because  they  appeal  to  permanent 
things,  to  the  instinct  for  beauty  in  human  nature, 
and  to  the  emotions,  and  in  any  one  who  is  at  all 
susceptible  to  their  influence,  they  develop  a  literary 
conscience." 

Nothinst  can  be  added  to  the  force  of  these 
admirable  words.  My  only  regret  is  that,  in  placing 
before  us  the  advantage,  nay  the  necessity,  of  recog- 
nising a  definite  standard  of  taste  for  the  purposes  of 
education,  Sir  Richard  Jebb  did  not  at  the  same 
time  insist  on  the  duty  of  promoting  this  aim  by 
organised  endeavour.  He  seems  to  rely  on  the 
permeating  influence  of  our  old  established  system 
of  Humanism  in  Education,  and  on  the  inspiring 
example  of  individual  scholars — that  is  to  say,  he  is 


436  LAW  IN  TASTE 


content  to  trust  to  the  principle  of  laisser  faire. 
Great  and  beneficial  as  the  indirect  effect  of  the 
labours  of  eminent  scholars  may  be  on  the  thought 
of  society,  it  is  impossible  that  the  ideal  they  repre- 
sent should  stand  against  the  overwhelming  pressure 
of  the  forces  of  materialism  around  us,  unless  it 
is  proclaimed,  defined,  and  systematically  defended. 
For  this  end  we  need  the  concerted  efi'orts  of  all 
who  desire  to  maintain  the  Humanist  tradition ; 
above  all,  we  need  a  deliberate  and  sustained  asser- 
tion of  the  principle  on  the  part  of  the  Universities. 

I  venture  to  think  that,  at  the  present  moment, 
the  English  Universities  are  hardly  acting  up  to 
their  traditions  in  the  amount  of  attention  that  they 
bestow  on  the  training  of  taste.  From  very  early 
days,  Oxford  and  Cambridge  assimilated  with  their 
system  of  mediaeval  education  all  the  ideas  that 
flowed  in  upon  them  with  the  rise  of  the  New 
Learning.  But  they  did  not,  like  the  later  Italian 
Humanists,  regard  art  and  learning  as  something  to 
be  pursued  for  its  own  sake,  and  without  reference  to 
the  active  life  of  the  State.  On  the  contrary,  as  the 
College  system  expanded,  the  ideal  of  civic  education 
grew  always  stronger ;  the  Universities  shared  to 
the  full  in  the  sympathies  and  interests  which  were 
moving  the  mind  of  the  nation  at  large,  and  instead 
of  developing  into  monasteries  devoted  to  the  pur- 
poses of  knowledge  and  research,  they  became  rather 
schools  for  preparing  the  minds  of  youth  for  the 
discharge  of  public  aff'airs.  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
having  participated  to  the  full  in  the  internal  struggle 


CONCLUSION  437 


caused   by   the    Reformation    and    the   Civil   Wars, 

continued   to   send   from   their  seminaries   the  men 

who    presided    over    the    business    of    the    country 

as  judges  and  statesmen ;  poets  and  essayists  went 

forth  from  the  seclusion  of  their  colleges  to  apply  the 

stores  of  knowledge,  there  derived  from  the  study  of 

antiquity,  to  the  problems  of  living  thought.     This 

bracing  political  atmosphere  helped  to  invigorate  the 

studies  of  the   Universities  themselves,   making  the 

scholar  sympathise  with  the  civic  spirit  of  the  great 

classical  authors,  and  vivify  the  literatures  of  Greece 

and  Rome   with  analogies   drawn  from  the   society 

about  him. 

While  my  own  official  duties  permit  me  to  observe 

with  satisfaction    how  largely  the  public  service   is 

still  recruited  from  the  Universities,  I  am  doubtful 

whether    Oxford,    at   all   events,    derives    as    much 

nourishment  as  was  formerly  the  case  from  the  outer 

world.      There  seems  within  the  last  fifty  years  to 

have  been  some  diminution  in  the  intercourse  between 

the  life  of  this  University  and  that  of  the  State. 

Perhaps  the  tendency  arises  from  a  natural  antipathy 

to  the  utilitarian  forces  in  society,  generated  in  the 

atmosphere  of  democratic  politics,  a  reaction  which 

has  driven  the  scholar  to  seek  his  own  ideal  of  liberty 

in  Self-Culture.     At  any  rate  no  one,  I  think,  can 

read  the  books  of  my  eminent  predecessor,  Matthew 

Arnold,  without  perceiving  that  ascertain  exclusive 

instinct   of  self-esteem    has   been   for   a   long   time 

impelling   Academic    society   to    exalt    itself  at   the 

expense  of  the  Gentile  world,  classified  as  Barbarians, 

2  f2 


438  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Philistines,  and  Populace.  The  University  man  has 
his  own  aesthetic  aim,  his  own  ideal  of  Self-Culture, 
to  pursue,  apart  from  the  main  impulse  of  social 
action  in  the  State.  And  the  result  of  this  Academic 
monasticism  has  been,  if  I  may  dare  to  say  so  before 
such  an  audience  as  this,  a  decline  in  the  robust- 
ness of  Oxford  taste.  I  seem  to  find  evidence  of  a 
falling  ofi"  in  the  prize  exercises  I  have  been  called  on 
to  judge  as  Professor  of  Poetry.  I  note  in  the  Essays, 
for  example,  a  failure  of  power  to  treat  a  subject  as  a 
whole,  a  tendency  to  cultivate  style  as  a  thing  desir- 
able in  itself  apart  from  the  subject-matter,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  passion  for  making  points  and  epigrams 
without  any  regard  to  perspective  and  proportion. 

This  is  one  of  the  mischiefs  that  arise  out  of 
separating  the  interests  of  Art  or  Taste  from  the 
movement  of  life  and  action ;  Taste  tends  to  become 
effeminate.  There  is  a  danger  of  an  opposite  kind,  also 
encouraged  by  the  prevalent  tendency  of  laisserfaire 
and  the  principle  De  gustihus  non  est  disputandum. 
I  mean  the  excess  of  scientific  curiosity  which  prompts 
the  inquirer  to  study  all  tastes  alike  in  a  spirit  of 
Epicurean  indifference.  In  the  enjoyment  we  derive 
from  watching  the  operations  of  the  human  mind,  w^ 
are  inclined  to  leave  out  of  account  the  moral  beariner 
of  taste,  and  to  content  ourselves  with  a  mere  analysis 
of  artistic  motives,  without  determining  whether  these 
are  good  or  bad,  right  or  wrong.  Such  a  habit  of 
thought  is  readily  engendered  by  the  study  of  history  ; 
and  I  venture  to  think  that  Professor  Saintsbury,  the 
value  of  whose  History  of  Criticism  can  hardly  be 


CONCLUSION  439 


overestimated,  comes  perilously  near  the  encourage- 
ment of  dilettante  trifling  when  lie  says:  "The 
point  on  which  I  am  content  to  be  called  a  critical 
Pangloss  is  this :  that  I  have  hardly  the  slightest 
desire  to  alter — if  I  could  do  so  by  the  greatest 
of  all  miracles,  that  of  retroactive  change  —  the 
literary  course  of  the  world.  No  doubt  things  might 
have  been  better  still :  but  one  may  also  be  perfectly 
contented  with  the  actual  result." 

If  it  be  the  case  that  Aristotle — as  Professor 
Saintsbury  says,  and  Mr.  Bosanquet,  in  his  History 
of  ^Esthetic,  seems  to  be  of  the  same  opinion — "  over- 
steps the  genus  a  little  in  his  generalisation,  and 
merges  Poetics  in  Ethics,"  then  I  am  well  content  to 
err  with  Aristotle.  But,  in  truth,  I  do  not  think 
that  he  does  err.  I  have  said,  in  my  lecture  on 
Aristotle,  that  all  his  philosophy  about  human  affairs 
regards  man,  not  from  the  mere  metaphysical  stand- 
point of  Kant  and  modern  philosophers,  as  an  isolated 
individual,  but  as  ttoKltikov  ^Sov,  a  social  being.  It 
would  therefore  have  been  impossible  for  him  to 
eliminate  moral  considerations  from  the  theory  of 
Fine  Art,  and  in  all  his  reasoning  about  Pleasure  as 
the  end  of  Art,  there  is  the  underlying  assumption  that 
the  pleasure  produced  by  Art  must  be  such  as  is  to 
promote  the  health  and  well-being  of  the  State.  Those 
who  think  that  his  reasoning  in  this  respect  is 
sound  will  conclude  that,  beyond  the  Law  of  the 
Universal,  there  is  no  absolute  law  in  ^Esthetics,  and 
that  the  only  law  binding  on  the  artist  is  the  Law  of 
National  Character,  as  interpreted  by  the  educated 


440  LAW  IN  TASTE 


conscience  of  society,  which  necessarily  includes  those 
religious  and  moral  considerations  that  determine  our 
conduct  as  individuals. 

By  pursuing,  or  seeming  to  pursue,  too  exclusively 
the  aim  of  Self-culture,  by  failing  to  direct  liberal  or 
Humanist  Education  to  a  moral,  a  practical,  a  social 
end,  I  think  we  have  brought  ourselves  within  measure- 
able  distance  of  a  great  danger.  This  may  be  seen 
dimly  approaching  in  the  light  of  the  address  recently 
delivered  by  Lord  Rosebery  as  Rector  of  Glasgow 
University.  I  read  with  sympathy  Lord  Rosebery's 
saying  that  the  affairs  of  the  British  Empire  ought 
to  be  conducted  on  business  principles ;  but  when 
I  ask  how  this  ideal  is  to  be  translated  into  action, 
I  find  that,  in  his  view,  the  tradition  of  educa- 
tion in  the  Universities  should  be  altered  so  as  to 
make  them  into  schools  of  technical  training  in  the 
business  of  commercial  and  professional  life.  Hence 
the  old  foundation  of  the  Humanities  is  to  be  abandoned. 
"The  protest,"  says  Lord  Rosebery,  "against  the  educa- 
tional bondage  of  the  dead  languages  is  being  raised  in 
Edinburgh  again  to-day,  but  this  time  by  the  voice  of 
the  mercantile  community.  The  leading  bodies  of 
that  calling  lately  appointed  a  Committee  to  consider 
the  subject  of  Commercial  Education.  Their  Report 
is  well  worth  reading.  They  speak  of  the  ancient 
tongues  with  courtesy  and  respect,  but  they  demand 
something  more  practical,  useful,  less  divorced  from 
everyday  life.  .  .  .  There  is  required,  they  say,  on 
the  part  of  the  educational  authorities  an  admission 
that  a  man  may  be  an  educated,  and  even  a  cultured 


CONCLUSION  441 


gentleman,  although  he  has  not  studied  Latin  or 
Greek ;  and  they  further  point  out  that  both  France 
and  Germany  possess  invaluable  literatures,  with  the 
advantage  that  they  are  in  languages  which  are  living 
and  are  not  dead." 

The  fallacy  underlying  this  reasoning  is  as  trans- 
parent as  it  is  time-honoured.  The  raison  d'etre  of 
our  Universities  is  to  promote  liberal  education,  and 
the  aim  of  liberal  education  is  not  to  impart  know- 
ledge for  utilitarian  purposes,  but  so  to  cultivate  the 
moral  and  intellectual  faculties  of  the  scholar  as  to 
fit  him,  on  his  entrance  into  life,  for  the  duties  of  a 
citizen.  Such  has  been  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
English  University  course  from  the  days  of  the 
Renaissance ;  such  is  still  the  effect  on  the  mind 
of  our  great  Oxford  school  of  Literce  Humaniores. 
To  depart  from  this  ideal,  to  do  away  with  this 
foundation,  to  attempt  to  build  up  a  fabric  of  cul- 
ture on  the  study  of  modern  languages  and  litera- 
tures, without  reference  to  the  art  and  literature 
of  antiquity,  would  be  to  reduce  the  system  of 
liberal  education  to  anarchy.  Men  of  independent 
minds  no  doubt  make  their  way  by  native  force  of 
character ;  but  education  in  itself  must  be  organised, 
and  how  is  it  possible  for  a  man  to  be  comprehensively 
instructed  in  the  history  of  human  society,  in  the 
meaning  of  law  and  government,  in  the  various  rela- 
tions of  thought,  and  in  the  useful  and  beautiful  arts 
of  expression,  unless  he  begins  at  the  beginning? 

At  the  same  time,  the  demand  that  liberal  educa- 
tion shall  be  practical  in  the  high  and  imperial  sense 


442  LAW  IN  TASTE 


of  the  term  is  a  just  one.  The  Universities  should  be 
prepared  to  show  that  their  schools  are  animated  with 
the  public  spirit  of  the  ttoKitlkt]  TratSeia,  the  civic  train- 
ing, that  was  given  in  the  city  states  of  Greece  in  the 
days  of  their  greatness  and  liberty.  Our  educational 
aims  ought  to  be  brought  into  conformity  with  the 
law  of  our  social  being  as  disclosed  in  the  course  of 
our  national  history,  and  they  will  then  be  seen  to 
be  equally  remote  from  a  narrow  utilitarianism  and 
from  the  pursuit  of  art  and  science  as  ends  in 
themselves. 

Let  us  recognise  the  principle  that  the  tendency  of 
our  time  towards  the  consolidation  of  the  Empire 
carries  with  it  a  corresponding  ideal  of  imperial 
Culture.  The  Universities  are  the  natural  guardians 
of  the  traditions  of  Humanism.  It  is  for  us  to  show 
our  scholars  that,  in  submitting  themselves  to  a  course 
of  education  founded  on  the  study  of  the  "  ancient 
tongues,"  they  are  not  "divorcing  themselves  from 
everyday  life,"  not  dissecting  a  dead  body,  not  learn- 
ing Greek  and  Latin  in  a  mere  spirit  of  archaeology, 
but  are  familiarising  themselves  with  a  science  that 
can  reveal  to  them  the  genius  of  their  own  ancient 
customs  and  Christian  institutions,  inseparably  as- 
sociated as  these  are  with  the  civic  spirit  of  fi-ee  Pagan 
antiquity.  From  the  vantage  ground  of  historic 
science  it  is  the  privilege,  and  should  be  the  aim, 
of  the  Universities  to  maintain  the  standard  of 
purity  in  the  English  language.  In  our  school  of 
English  Language  and  Literature — at  least  as  it  might 
be — the  student  may  learn  to  trace  from  age  to  age 


LECT.  X  CONCLUSION  443 

the  development  of  our  tongue,  and  to  observe 
the  flexibility  with  which  its  character  has  adapted 
itself  to  the  gradual  changes  in  our  national  life  and 
society.  Nor  ought  we  to  study  our  own  language 
and  literature  in  a  mere  insular  temper,  but,  by 
comparing  it  with  the  genius  of  the  languages  and 
literatures  of  the  Continent,  to  teach  the  scholar  how 
to  appreciate  justly  the  relative  character  of  English 
Art  and  Poetry,  as  the  vehicle  of  ideas  common  to  all 
the  Christian  nations  of  Europe. 

Such  was,  in  principle,  the  method  of  English 
University  education  that  called  forth  the  ever- 
memorable  tribute  from  the  illustrious  Dollinger, 
cited  in  my  Inaugural  Lecture :  "  The  colleges  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  have  many  a  time,  as  I  ob- 
served their  working  on  the  spot,  awakened  in  me 
feelings  of  envy,  and  led  me  to  long  for  the  time 
when  we  might  again  have  something  of  the  kind ; 
for  I  could  plainly  perceive  that  their  effect  was  to 
make  instruction  take  root  in  the  mind,  and  become 
a  part  of  it,  and  that  their  influence  extended  beyond 
the  mere  communication  of  knowledge,  to  the  en- 
nobling elevation  of  the  life  and  character."  Nolumus 
leges  Anglice  mittari :  we  will  do  nothing  to  weaken 
the  groundwork  of  the  national  character ;  for,  as  was 
asked  of  old,  "  if  the  foundations  be  destroyed,  what 
can  the  righteous  do  ? "  If,  on  the  other  hand,  these 
ethical  foundations  arc  kept  sacred  and  untouched, 
the  most  ample  opportunity  is  given  for  expanding 
the  principle  of  individual  liberty,  according  to  the 
ever-changing  needs  of  our  imperial  society  : 


444  LAW  IN  TASTE 


Nought  shall  make  us  me, 
If  England  to  itself  do  rest  but  true. 

Do  we  ask  for  some  practical  guide  in  the  exercise 
of  rational  freedom  in  taste  and  politics,  I  know  not 
what  more  majestic  monument  of  Law  we  can  find 
than  the  continuous  growth  of  our  institutions  as 
reflected  in  our  langruage  and  literature.  In  that 
ideal  mirror,  illuminated  by  history,  may  be  seen  an 
image  of  the  life  of  the  people  which  will  enable  the 
statesman  to  proceed  safely  on  his  path  of  necessary 
reconstruction,  stimulate  the  invention  of  the  painter 
and  the  poet,  and  prove  to  the  philosopher  that  the 
perfecting  of  the  law  of  liberty  consists  in  maintain- 
ing the  standard  of  duty  imposed  on  us  alike  by  the 
actions  and  by  the  art  of  our  fathers. 


COREIGENDA 

P.  250,  last  line,  for  "  through  walled  towns,"  read  "through  once-walled 
towns." 

P.  294,  line  3, /or  "  general  and  moderating  guidance,"  read  "  genial  and 
moderating  guidance." 

P.  431,  line  9,  for  "to  furnish  sufficient  proof  of,  at  least;  the  un- 
conscious operation  of  the  two  great  Laws  of  Taste,"  read  "to  furnish 
suflBcient  proof  of,  at  least,  the  unconscious  operation  of  the  two  great  Laws 
of  Taste." 


INDEX 


Absalom  and  Achitophd,  41 
Absolutism,  394 
Academies,  15,  16,  37,  279 
Academy,  the  French,  13-14,  15-16,  19, 

228 
Addison,  23,  150,  330,  331,  333 
jEneid,  50-2 

^schylus,  101, 103, 104,  119,  126,  217 
^Esthetic  philosophy,  161,  168-9 
Affectation,  32,  297,  405 
Agathon,  93,  122 
Allegory,  344,  365-6 
Analysis  in  Art,  148,  249 
Atmly sis  of  Beauty,  172 
Anglo-Saxon  Culture,  315-23 

Language,  307 

Race,  300-4 

Versification,  304-15 

Anthology,  the  Greek,  98-9 
Antigone,  26,  216 
Anti-Jacobin,  The,  396 
Apollo  Belvedere,  293 
Apollonius  Rhodius,  94-7,  109 
Apology  for  Poetry,  69 
Argonautica,  94 
Aristocracy,  English,  130-1 
Aristophanes,  27,  103,  216,  217 
Abistotlk  as  a  Critic,  190-221 ;  life  of 

Aristotle,  190-1  ;  his  vast  authority  ; 
opposition  to  his  authority  in  Eng- 
land, 192-3 ;  main  principles  of 
his  criticism :  (1)  object  of  Poetry, 
Imitation,  193-6  ;  (2)  object  of 
Poetical  Imitation,  the  Universal  not 
the  Particular,  196-209;  examples 
of  the  Universal  in  Poetry,  Scott's 
Hefirt  of  Midlothian,  200-1  ;  Jane 
Austen's  Pride  and  Prejudice,  201-2 ; 
examples  of  attempts  to  imitate  the 
Universal  by  means  of  analysis,  Ben 
Jonson,  204  ;  Balzac,  204-5 ;  absence 
of  the  Universal  in  mwlem  novels, 
206-9;    (3)  test  of  true  Imitation, 


Universal  Pleasure,  209-10;  dis- 
regard of  Social  Pleasure  as  principle 
of  Fine  Art  by  modem  artists,  211  ; 
Naturalists,  and  Impressionists,  211- 
13 ;  Aristotle's  critical  defects  ; 
exaggeration  of  Logical  Analysis, 
213-16;  want  of  poetic  sensibility, 
216-18 ;  distinction  between  Aris- 
totle's Universal  Laws  of  Art  and 
his  Bye-Laws,  218-19 ;  misrepresenta- 
tion of  Aristotle's  Poetics  by  the 
scholars  of  the  Renaissance,  219-20  ; 
elucidation  of  the  treatise  by  modem 
scholars,  220 ;  Professor  Butcher's 
edition  of  the  Poetics,  221 

Aristotle's  Rules,  279-84,  331-2 

Arnold,  Matthew,  7,  9,  15,  20,  23-4, 
42,  111,  135-8,  269,  437-8 

Ars  Poetica,  43,  117,  210,  237 

Art  Poetiqxie,  Boileau's,  238-43 

Art  Poetiqne,  Verlaine's,  116-17 

Atcdanta  in  Calydon,  139 

Atticus,  character  of,  56 

Aubign/',  226,  289 

Ausonius,  99,  100 

Austen,  Miss,  201-2 

Authority  in  Matters  op  Tastb, 
3-33  ;  Professorship  of  Poetry,  3  ; 
indefinite  functions,  4  ;  founder  of 
Chair  ;  his  life  and  character,  4-5  ; 
holders  of  Chair,  6-8 ;  denial  of 
authority  in  taste,  8  ;  tendency  of 
self-culture,  9  ;  De  gustibxu^  non  est 
dispiUanilum,  10-13 ;  necessity  of 
authority  in  taste,  13  ;  various  courts 
of  authority  in  taste,  13-19 ;  the 
Academy,  13-16  ;  the  Coterie,  16  ; 
Public  Opinion,  16-18  ;  the  Press, 
18-19 ;  defects  in  these  courts  of 
authority,  19 ;  education  of  taste, 
20  ;  essential  qualities  in  criticism, 
20  ;  consequences  of  unjudicial  spirit 
in    criticism  ;    Croker    and    Keats, 


2g 


446 


INDEX 


20-23  ;  consequences  of  judging  by- 
private  standard,  Matthew  Arnold, 
23-4  ;  final  authority  in  taste,  the 
works  of  great  artists,  24-5  ;  as 
having  stood  the  test  of  time,  25  ; 
and  as  being  representative  of 
humanity,  26 ;  education  in  taste 
at  the  English  Universities,  27-29  ; 
the  School  of  English  Language  and 
Literature  at  Oxford,  29-30  ;  aim  of 
lectures,  31-33 

"Authority,"  Mediaeval,  in  Church  and 
State,  335-9 

Ayliner's  Field,  413-4 

Bacon,  340,  373-4,  375,  378 

Balzac,  1 49,  203,  204-5 

Beaconstield,  Lord,  160 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  280 

Beauty,  166,  173,  180-2 

Beethoven,  164,  253 

Birkhead,  Henry,  4-6,  11 

Blackmore,  102 

Blake,  396 

Boccaccio,  320,  323,  364,  365 

Boileau,  237-43,  349,  394 

Bolingbroke,  375,  377,  378,  381 

Bosanquet,  Bernard,  161,  166,  439 

Bourget,  Paul,  207-9 

Browning,  Robert,  58 

Brunne,  Robert  of,  316 

Buckingham,  Pope's  lines  on  death  of,  87 

Biirger,  265 

Burke,  23,  172 

Butcher,  Professor,  70  (foot-note),  215, 
220-21,  432 

Byron  as  a  representative  of  Law  in 
English  Poetry,  388-407  ;  Macaulay's 
theory  of  decline  of  Poetry,  388  ;  ex- 
amined, 389-90 ;  Lyi-ic  Poetry  product 
of  self-conscious  stage  of  society, 
391  ;  Rousseau,  pioneer  of  European 
self-consciousness  and  Romanticism, 
391-2 ;  distinction  between  Shake- 
speare's self-consciousness  and  Rous- 
seau's, 392-3 ;  effect  of  self-con- 
consciousness  on  creative  art  of 
Rousseau,  393-4  ;  reaction  from  Ab- 
solutism to  Romanticism  in  Europe, 
394-5  ;  checked  in  England  by 
constitutional  system,  394-5  ;  pro- 
gress of  Romanticism  in  England, 
395-7 ;  B)Ton  the  most  self-conscious 
of  poets,  397-8  ;  examples  of  his  self- 
consciousness,  398  -  9  ;  mixture  of 
aristocratic  feeling  with  his  Romantic 
self-consciousness,  399  ;  effect  of  the 
mixture  on  his  poetry  ;  failure  in 
epic  and  dramatic  constructiveness, 
400-1  ;    his   lyric   self-consciousness 


the  vehicle  of  expression  for  uni- 
versal feelings,  402-3 ;  uses  epic, 
dramatic,  and  satiric  forms  IjTically 
as  vehicles  of  self- consciousness, 
403-4  ;  his  power  of  poetical  ex- 
pression, 405-6  ;  Macaulay's  descrip- 
tion of  his  mixed  and  representative 
genius,  406-7 

Coedmon,  300,  301,  304,  315,  316 

Callimachus,  98-9,  109 

Cambridge,  University  of,  28 

Canada  and  "  Our  Lady  of  Snows,"  145 

Canadians,  145 

Cain,  399,  401 

Ganterhury  Tales,  The,  318-28 

Caravaggio,  91 

Cartwright,  William,  5 

Cassandra,  118 

Castelvetro,  279,  282 

Castiglione,  21 

Centuries,  the  drama  of  the,  420 

Chaucer,  as  representative  of  Law  in 
English  Poetry,  299-328  ;  question 
as  to  Chaucer's  title  to  be  called 
Father  of  English  Poetry,  299-300  ; 
mixed  character  of  English  Poetry 
begins  with  Chaucer,  300  ;  mixture 
of  races  in  England  reflected  in  his 
birth  and  education,  301-4  ;  in  his 
language  and  versification,  304-15  ; 
charge  against  Cliaucer  of  corrupting 
the  language,  304-6  ;  natural  changes 
in  Saxon  grammar,  306-8  ;  natural 
changes  in  Saxon  versification,  308-9  ; 
Chaucer's  combination  of  Saxon  and 
French  in  his  verse,  309-15  ;  mixture 
of  English  and  Continental  culture 
reflected  in  Chaucer's  Poetry,  315-24  ; 
domination  of  ecclesiastical  influence 
in  Saxon  Poetry,  315-6  ;  Chaucer 
contrasted  with  Langland,  316-23  ; 
Chaucer's  mixture  of  secular  and 
religious  interests,  318-20  ;  of  art 
and  morality,  320-1  ;  of  insular  and 
continental  ideas,  321-4  ;  Chaucer's 
humour  representative  of  English 
genius,  324-5;  the  "universal" 
character  of  Chaucer's  genius,  326-8 

ChUde  Harold,  403,  404,  405 

Chivalry,  379-80 

Christian,  Tlie,  206 

Christ's  Death  and  Victory,  369 

Cid,  The,  234-5 

Clarissa  Ilarl&we,  74 

Classes,  decline  of,  128-35 

Classical  authority,  24-7 

Classicists,  French,  242-3,  248,  249 

Cleveland,  John,  5 

Cobden,  425 


INDEX 


447 


Coleridge,  63,  82 

Comedie  Huinaine,  204-5 

Conclusion,  419-44  ;  survey  of  pro- 
fessorial period,  419  ;  political  coin- 
cidences, 419-20  ;  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  its  character,  421  ;  spirit  of 
individual  liberty,  421-4  ;  optimism, 
422-3  ;  pessimism,  423-4  ;  examples 
of  consequences  of  laisser  faire  in 
commerce,  religion,  art,  425-7  ;  con- 
sciousness of  aim  in  the  State,  427  ; 
survey  of  lectures,  428-31  ;  necessity 
of  recognising  Law  in  Taste,  427-8  ; 
Law  of  the  Universal,  431  ;  authority 
of  Aristotle's  Poetics,  431-2  ;  law  of 
national  character,  432  ;  authority 
of  representative  national  critics, 
432-3  ;  authority  of  humanist  educa- 
tion, 433-4  ;  Sir  Richard  Jebb  on 
Humanism  in  Education,  434-6 ; 
humanist  education  in  the  Univer- 
sities, 436-7;  self -culture  in  the 
University  of  Oxford,  437-8  ;  its  re- 
sults, Professor  Saintsbury's  view, 
438-9  ;  taste  and  morals,  439-40  ; 
reaction  against  humanism  in  educa- 
tion, Lord  Rosebery's  view,  440-1  ; 
true  aim  of  University  education, 
441-2  ;  imperial  culture,  442-3  ;  the 
Law  of  Liberty  in  Education,  443-4 

Confessions,  Rousseau's,  391-3 

Contraries,  reconciliation  of,  292-3 

Contrat  Social,  395 

Comeille,  231-5,  252,  260 

Correctness,  361,  381-2,  384-5 

Corsair,  The,  401 

Cosmopolitanism,  German,  263 

Coteries,  16,  109-10,  297 

Cowley,  106-8,  129,  370,  378,  380 

Cowper,  396 

Crashaw,  Richard,  371-3,  376,  378 

Criticism,  20-4,  37-8,  159-61,  183-9, 
256 

Croker,  21-3 

Oromwell,  244-6 

Culture,  9,  135-8,  437-43 

Cursor  Mundi,  316 

C^newulf,  315,  316 

Dante,  67,  106-7,  335-9,  348,  351 

Decadence.     Sec  Poetical 

Dfftnct  of  Poetry,  69-70 

Deformed  Transformed,  401 

Degeneration,  111 

De    gtistihus    7wn    eM    dispiitandum , 

10-13,  426-7 
Deism,  375-7,  396 
Delia  Crusca,  109 
De  Monarchin,  Dante's,  337 
De  Quincey,  361 


Dichtung  und  Wahrheit,  255 

Diderot,  231,  242 

Difficile  est  proprie  communia   dicere, 

48,57 
Discordia  Concors,  367,  373 
Discourse     on     the     Tfiree      Unities, 

Comeille's,  231-4 
Discourses  on  Painting,  25,  292 
Divine  Comedy,  67, 322,  333,  335-9,  355 
Dolci,  Carlo,  91 
Ddllinger,  28,  443 
Dolores,  82 
Don  Carlos,  Schiller's,  261 

Juan,  404,  405 

Quixote,  252,  325 

Donne,  129,  378 

Dryden,  41-2,  87,  281,  309 

Diirer,  252 

Elegy,  Gray's,  57,  264 

Emilia  Galotti,  260 

English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers, 

399,  403-4 
English  Character,  285-6 

Drama,  101-2 

History,  287-8 

Language,  286-7 

School  of  Language  and   Litera- 
ture at  Oxford,  29-31,  442 
Ennius,  305,  325 

Epic  Poetry,  94-7,  102,  241-2,  347-9 
Epistle    to    Arhuthnot,    Pope's,    381, 

385 
Erasmus,  27,  291 
Essay    on    Criticism,   237-8,    278-84, 

292,  361-2 
Essay  on  Man,  297,  378,  394 
Euripides,  103-4,  105,  127,  178,  217 
Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  195 
Every  Man  out  of  his  Hummir,  195 
Exairsion,  76 

Faery  Queen,  102 
FavM,  253,  266-7,  295,  400 
Feudalism,  289,  318,  336-9,  430 
Filostrato,  Boccaccio's,  323 
Flau1)ert,  Gustave,  249 
Fletcher,  Beaumont  and,  280 

Giles,  369-70,  378 

Phineas,  368-9,  378 

France,  Anatole,  250 
Free  'rra<le,  ideal  of,  425 
French  Character,  224 

Drama,  172,  230-7 

History,  224-5,  288 

Language,  286 

Metres  in  English,  308-15 

Poetry.     See  Idea 

Revolution,  60,  225.  248,  394-7 

Words  in  English,  306-8,  313,  314 


448 


INDEX 


FursUrigrvft,  Die,  Schubat's,  264-5 

Gautier,  Theophile,  246-8,  249 
Oeorgics,  Virgil's,  100,  195 
German  Character,  253-5,  274-5 

Drama,  258-62 

Empire,  274-6 

Language,  257-8,  262 

Literature,  255-6 

Gifford,  110,  396,  406 

Goethe,  174,  255,   259,  261-2,  266-7, 

270,  271,  272,  290,  400 
Grand  Cyrus,  227,  380 
Gray,  57,  264 
Gregory  the  First,  351 
Greuvill,  Bevill,  5 

Haviinirgische  lyramaturgie,  172,  259 
Hamlet,   207-9,   291,    296,    297,    334, 

402-3 
Handel,  253 
Hartmann,  181-2,  183 
Hegel,  175,  180,  181 
Heine,  253,  261,  267-72 
Hellenising,  138-41 
Hercules  Oetaeus,  105-6 
Herder,  263-4 
Higden,  307 
Hippolytus,  105 

History  of  ^Esthetic,  161,  169-75 
Hogarth,  172 
Holbein,  252 
Homer,  49-50,  148,  149 
Horace,  21,  43-5,  65-6,  78,  117 
Horace,  Corneille's,  236,  260 
Hours   of  Idleness,   397-8,   403,   407, 

409 
Hugo,  Victor,  244-6,  304 
Humanism,  130,  294,   357,  395,  430, 

434-43 
Humanists,  27,  289,  291 
Hume,  David,  160,  378 

Idea  of  Law  in  English  Poetry, 
278-98  ;  Pope's  view  in  Essay  on 
Criticism,  278  ;  examination  of 
Pope's  view,  279-84  ;  English  national 
character,  285-6  ;  English  language, 
286-7  ;  English  character  compared 
with  French  and  German  character, 
287-91  ;  main  characteristics  of 
English  character  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  contrary  principlas,  292 ; 
character  reflected  in  English  Art 
and  Literature ;  Sir  Joshua  Rejmolds's 
definition  of  Art,  292-3  ;  examples 
of  reconciliation  of  contraries  in 
English  Poetry  ;  Vision  of  Piers  the 
Ploimian,  293 ;  The  Canterbury 
Tales,  293-4  ;  Saiires  of  Pope,  294  ; 


poetry  of  Byron  and  Tennyson,  294  ; 
test  to  be  applied  in  judging  con- 
temporary poetry,  294-8  ;  popularity 
and  singularity  both  inadequate  tests 
of  genius,  294-7  ;  the  Universal 
truth  of  classic  English  Poetry  lies 
in  the  just  mean  between  the  two, 
297  ;  examples  of  characteristic  ex- 
pression in  English  Poetry,  298 

Idea  op  Law  in  French  Poetry, 
222-51  ;  difference  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Greek  art  and  the  art  of 
modern  nations,  222-24  ;  French 
national  character  and  history  re- 
flected in  French  literature,  224-5  ; 
French  literary  parties,  225  -  6  ; 
party  of  the  chivalrous  aristocracy, 
its  qualities,  226-7 ;  party  of  the 
bourgeoisie,  its  qualities,  227  ; 
Moliere,  228-9  ;  La  Fontaine,  229- 
30 ;  French  character  reflected  in 
French  drama,  230-1  ;  Corneille, 
Discourse  on  the  Three  Unities,2dl-7  ; 
French  character  reflected  in  French 
criticism,  Boileau,  237-43  ;  conflict 
between  Classicists  and  Romanticists, 
243-4 ;  Victor  Hugo,  Preface  to 
Grmmoell,  244  -  5  ;  resemblance 
between  The  Cid  and  Crmnwell, 
246 ;  Thc'ophile  Gautier,  Emaux 
et  Camees,  246-7  ;  resemblance 
between  ideals  of  Boileau  and 
Gautier,  247-8 ;  conflict  between 
Classicists  and  Romanticists  con- 
tinued between  Naturalists  and 
Impressionists,  Gustave  Flaubert, 
Anatole  France,  249-50 

Idea  of  Law  in  German  Poetry, 
252  -  77  ;  results  of  German  art. 
252-3  ;  German  character  described 
by  Tacitus,  253  ;  exhibited  in  their 
representative  men,  254  ;  individual- 
ism in  German  history,  254-5  ; 
absence  of  national  principle  in 
German  literature,  255-6  ;  Klop- 
stock's  Messiah  contrasted  with 
I'aradise  Lost  and  Paradise  Re- 
gained, 256-8 ;  German  char- 
acter in  German  drama,  Lessing, 
Schiller,  Goethe  258-62;  German 
genius  for  lyric  poetry,  262 ; 
cosmopolitan  tendency  in  German 
literature  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Herder,  262-3 ;  futile  attempt  to 
express  civic  ideas  in  German  lyric 
poetry  of  eighteenth  century, 
Frederic  Schubart ;  Die  Furstengrvft 
contrasted  with  Gray's  Elegy,  264-5  ; 
German  genius  for  lyric  jwetry 
reflected  in  Faust,  266-7  ;  in  Heine's 


/ 


INDEX 


449 


songs,  267-72 ;  WUhelm  MiiUer,  273  ; 

question  as  to  the  future  of  German 

Poetry,  274-7 
Ideals  for  Middle  Class,  135-45 
IdyUs  of  the  King,  413 
Iliad,  49-50,  94,  353 
"Imitation"  in  Fine  Art,  63,   152-3, 

163-4,  193-6 
Imitations  of  Horace,  Pope's,  43,  382, 

384 
Impressionists,  59,  142,  211-13,  249-50 
Individual,  The,  44,  67-8 
Individualism,  9,  136,  148-9,  254-5 
In  Memoriam,  87,  412,  418 
Inspiration,  44-7,  154 

Jebb,  Sir  Richard,  434-5 
Jerusalem  Delivered,  Tasso's,  348-9 
Johnson,  Samuel,  367,  406,  433 
Jonson,  Ben,  17,  68,  195,  203-4 
Justinian,  337 
Juvenal,  55 

Kant,  173,  179-80,  253,  254 

Keats,  21-3,  40,  81 

Keble,  John,  7 

King  Lear,  205,  236,  296 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  141-5,  153 

Klopstock,  256-8 

Kubla  Khan,  81 

La  Fontaine,  239-30,  251 

Laisser /aire,  422-7 

Langland,  308,  315,  316-18,  319-20, 
321,  323 

Laocoon,  172 

Laodamia,  76 

Lara^  401 

Latin  element  in  English,  314 

Poetry,  100-1 

Law,  William,  396 

Law  in  Taste,  159-189  ;  English  dislike 
of  Criticism,  159-60  ;  how  far  reason- 
able, 160-2 ;  question  as  to  the 
object  of  Fine  Art  Imitation,  163-4  ; 
correctness  in  Imitation,  164-5  ; 
^Esthetic  Pleasure,  end  of  Fine  Art, 
166 ;  Mr.  Bosanquet's  contrary 
view,  166-7  ;  question  as  to  con- 
nection between  Art  and  Morals, 
168  ;  history  of  ^Esthetic  CriticLsni, 
169-75 ;  history  of  Philosophic 
Enquiry  into  ^Esthetic  Law,  175-81  ; 
failure  of  iEsthetic  Philosophy  to 
throw  light  on  artistic  practice, 
181-4  ;  Law  in  Art  and  Taste  to  Ixi 
looke<l  for  in  the  greatest  works  of 
Art,  184  ;  the  Absolute  in  Art 
variously    reflected,    185 ;     law     of 


National  Character   in  Art,  185-6  ; 

National  Criticism,  186-9 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  46-7.  71   149 
Layamon,  307 

Legend  of  Good  Women,  322 
Leibnitz,  394 
Leonora,  266 

Lessiug,  172,  253,  259-60,  290,  433 
Les  Tragiqv.es.  226 
Liberty  in    Matters    of    Taste.       See 

Authority 
Political    and    Individual,  60-1, 

423-27 
Life  in  Poetry,   38-44,   58-62,   89-90, 

124-6,  188 
LitevK  Humaniores,  School  of,  30,  441 
Locke,  367,  375,  378 
Locksley  Hall,  407,  409,  410 

Sixty  Years  After,  410 

Logic  in  Art,  249-50 

Longinus,  170 

Lorris,  William  de,  225,  304 

Lovelace,  380 

Lowth,  Bishoj),  6 

Luther,  253,  254,  352,  358 

Lutrin,  247 

Lyoophron,  118 

Lyiy,  21 

Lyric  Poetry,  389-91 

Macaulay,  330,  343-7,  388,  389,  406 

Macbeth,  233,  258,  291 

Malherbe,  226,  238 

Mallarme,  115 

Manfred,  401 

Mannerism,  297,  413-14, 

Marino.  369 

Marin >  Faliero,  413,  416 

Marlow^  71-72 

Marot,  225.  289 

Mavd,  407,  410,  413 

Measti.re  for  Measure,  291 

Medal,  Drjden's,  41 

Men  and  Women,  417 

Mengs,  Raphael,  172 

M''.isiah,  Klopstock's,  256-8 

Metaphysical  Poetry,  5,  367-73 

Metre,  73-78 

Meung,  John  de,  225,  304 

Mid.lle  Class,  The  English,  131-5 

Middlemarch,   117 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  85,  422 

Millais,  1S3-84 

Milman,  Dean,  6 

Mli.TON  as  a  reiiresentative  of  Law  in 
f:iiKlisli  Poetry,  329-359 ;  popular 
dislike  of  Milton's  Theologj-,  329  ; 
not  to  Ik;  taken  into  account  in  judg- 
ing liis  genius,  330-1  ;  Addison's 
criticism  on  I'aradi-sr  Lost,  its  merits 


450 


INDEX 


and  defects,  331-2  ;  Paradise  Lost 
regarded  (1)  as  an  imitation  of  the 
Universal  in  Nature,  332-4  ;  (2)  as 
an  imitation  of  the  age  and  character 
of  the  time,  334-43  ;  comparison 
between  The  Divine  Conudy,  as  the 
mirror  of  the  thought  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  335-39  ;  and  Paradise  Lost, 
as  the  mirror  of  the  thought  of  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation, 
339-43  ;  Panuiise  I^st  reganled  (3) 
as  harmonising  opposite  principles  of 
Art,  343-357  ;  Macaulay's  contrast 
between  the  styles  of  Dante  and 
Milton,  343 ;  examined,  344-7  ; 
contrast  between  the  epic  method  of 
Tasso  and  Milton,  347-50  ;  Milton's 
reconciliation  of  Christian  and  Pagan 
principles  in  machinery  of  epic  action, 
349-51  ;  of  Christian  and  classical 
ideas  and  images,  351-5  ;  faults  in 
Paradise  Lost,  355-6  ;  Paradise 
Lost,  viewed  in  relation  to  con- 
temporary circumstances,  356-8  ; 
its  reflection  of  English  Character, 
359 

Minot,  Laurence,  322 

Mistress,  The,  Cowley's,  380 

Modern  Painters,  161 

Moliere,  228-9,  251,  252 

Montrose,  380 

Moral  Essays,  Pope's,  381 

Moralitv  and  Art,  168,  177-81,  320-1, 
438-40 

Morice,  Charles,  119-20 

Morris,  William,  80-81 

Mozart,  253 

Miiller  Wilhelra,  273 

Naevius,  305 

National  Character  in  Art,  185-9 
Naturalists,  211-13,  249-50 
Nineteenth  Century,  the,  421-4 
Nordau,  111-14,  123,  147 
Norman  Conquest,  the,  302 
Nouvelle  Helolse,  395 

Ode  on  Immortality,  76,  391 

(Edipv^  Rex,  105,  258 

Optimism,  394,  422-3 

Oratory  and  Poetry,  85,  139 

Orlando  Furioso,  252,  349 

Othello,  7i 

Oxford,  University  of,  1,  28,  29,|437-44 

Palace  of  Art,  411 
Palgrave,  Francis,  8 
Painting  and  Poetry,  39-40,  41,  94-97, 
246-48,  411-13 


Paradise  Lost,  45,  46,  129,  252,  256, 
332,  333-4,  339-43 

Paradise  Regained,  256-7,  369 

Paratliso,  45,  337 

Parliament  of  Foules,  322 

Pater,  Walter,  10 

Pathos,  52 

Pessimism,  423-4 

Pericles,  33 

Hipl  itipovs, 

Phadra,  Seneca's,  105 

Philologists,  30,  300,  306 

Piers  the  Plmmnan,  Vision  of,  293, 
305,  316-18 

Plato,  169,  170-71 

Pleasure,  38-9,  63-4,  166-7,  175-81 

Pleiad,  226 

Poe,  Edgar,  81 

Poems  by  Two  Brothers,  407 

Plotiuus,  170 

Poetical  Conception,  37-62,  Nature 
of,  42-4  ;  Horace's  principle  of,  43, 
48  ;  Universal  and  Indi\idual  in, 
44  -  7  ;  Homer's  method  of,  49  ; 
Virgil's,  50  - 1  ;  Statius',  52  -  5  ; 
Juvenal's,  55  ;  Pope's,  56  ;  Brown- 
ing's, 58  ;  existing  difficulties  in  the 
way  of,  58-62 

Decaden'CE,  89-122 ;   illustrated 

in  history  of  Greece,  Rome,  and 
England,  90  ;  symptoms  of  (1) 
decline  of  the  Universal,  92-102  ; 
(2)  exaggeration  of  the  Individual, 
102-108  ;  (3)  abdication  by  Society 
of  its  right  of  judgment,  108-10  ; 
Nordau's  view  of,  111-14  ;  signs  of, 
in  French  school  of  Poetical  Symbol- 
ism, 115-120  ;  question  as  to  con- 
temporary, 120-2 

Expression,    63  -  88  ;    Horace's 

rule  for,  65-6  ;  Universal  and  Indi- 
vidual in,  67  ;  metre  the  vehicle  of, 
68-73  ;  Wordsworth's  theory  of,  73- 
78  ;  test  for  determining  propriety  of, 
78  ;  Walt  ^\^litman^s,  79  ;  William 
Morris's,  80  ;  Coleridge's  definition 
of,  81  ;  in  Kubla  Khan,  81  ;  in 
Dolores,  82  ;  existing  diflSculties  in 
the  way  of,  82-86  ;  examples  of  just, 
87-8 

Poetics,  Aristotle's,  191-3, 213-220,  223, 
432 

Poetry  and  the  People,  123-156 ; 
connection  between  the  life  of  a  nation 
and  the  life  of  Art,  125-6  ;  question 
as  to  extent  of  decay  in  national  life, 
127-8  ;  decay  in  schools  of  art  con- 
temporaneous with  decay  of  ruling 
principles  in  the  classes  of  a  nation, 
128-9  ;   the  decay  of  the  power  of 


INDEX 


451 


the  Crown,  128  ;  of  the  power  of  the 
Aristocracy,  130-1  ;  of  the  power  of 
the  Middle  Classes,  131-5  ;  ideals  of 
Culture  and  Poetry  suggested  by 
modem  critics,  Matthew  Arnold's, 
135-8  ;  Mr.  Swinburne's,  138-40  ; 
Mr.  Kipling's,  141-5;  pursuit  of 
Novelty  in  Poetry,  145-6  ;  causes  of 
decline  in  Modem  Poetry,  Herr  Nor- 
dau's  pathological  theory,  147-8  ; 
Self-conscious  Analysis  in  Poetry, 
148-9  want  of  Cultivation  in  public 
taste,  150-1  ;  necessity  of  the  Uni- 
versal in  Poetry,  153-4  ;  National 
ideal  in  Poetic  Imitation,  154-5 

Polymetis,  172 

Pope  as  a  representative  of  Law  in 
English  Poetry,  360-87  ;  value  of  the 
Essay  on  Criticism,  as  the  critical 
work  of  a  poet,  361-2 ;  main  principles 
in  the  Essay  on  Criticism,  362-87  ; 

(1)  "Follow  Nature," 362-5 ;  different 
conceptions  of  Nature  in  pre-Christian 
Society,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in 
the  post- Renaissance  period,  362-5  ; 

(2)  "Avoid  False  Wit,"  365-73; 
"  Wit,"  the  result  of  the  theological 
conception  of  Nature  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  365-7  ;  examples  of  False  Wit 
in  English  Poetry,  367-73  ;  Phineas 
Fletcher's  Purple  Island,  368-9  ; 
Giles  Fletcher's  Christ's  Death  atul 
Victory,  369-70  ;  Crashaw's  lyrics, 
370-3  ;  Pope's  conception  of  Nature, 
373-82 ;  his  attempt  to  reconcile 
Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  ideas, 
374-5 ;  Catholicism  and  Deism, 
375-7  ;  his  rational  conception  of  the 
Universal  contrasted  with  the  False 
Wit  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
377-8  ;  his  exclusion  from  poetry  of 
the  scholastic  elements,  379  ;  of  the 
Romantic  element,  380;  (3)  "Imitate 
the  Classics,"  379  -  85  ;  Pope's 
assimilation  of  the  classic  and  civic 
spirit  of  antiquity  with  modem  life 
and  action,  379-81  ;  restricted  scope 
of  his  poetical  conception,  382-4  ; 
limitation  in  his  principle  of  correct 
poetical  expression,  384  -  5 ;  his 
supremacy  in  ethical,  satiric,  and 
didactic  verse,  386-7 

Popularity,  295-6 
Prelude,  76 

Preraphaelites,  183-4,  276 
Pride  and  Prejiuiice,  201-2 
Professorship  of  Poetry,  3-8,  31-3 
Public  Opinion,  18-19,  151-2,  295-6 

Service  and  Universities,  29,  437 

Puritaoism,  Milton's,  352,  357-8 


Purple  Island,  The,  363 

Quarterly  Review,  20-23 
QuintUian,  24,  433 
Quintilius  Varus,  108 

Rabelais,  227,  289 
Racine,  252 

Rambouillet,  Hotel  de,  226,  227,  229, 
239,  250 

Marquise  de,  226 

Mdlle.  de,  249 

PMjje  of  the  Lock,  381 
Realists  in  Art,  203-9 
Reformation,  the,  130,  289,  291,  293-4, 

342,  352,  357,  420,  437 
Religio  Laid,  41 
Renaissance,  the,  138,   140,  171,  249, 

290-1,  341-2,  358,   364,   373,   374, 

383,  392,  395,  421,  441 
Renan,  14,  250 
Reynolds,    Sir   Joshua,  25,   292,4343 

356,  383 
Richardson,  74,  396 
Richelieu,  14 
Robbers,  Schiller's,  261 
Rollinat,  118 
Romance,  61-2,  380-1 
RoDUUice  of  t/ie  Rose,  225,  280,  322 
Romanticists,  French,  243-9 
Ronsard,  226 
Rosebery,  Lord,  440 
Rossetti,  112 
Rousseau,  391-5,  407 
Ruins  of  Time,  Spenser's,  42,  83 
Ruskin,  23,  161 

Sannazaro,  380 

SardarMjxdiis,  399,  401 

Sarpedon,  26 

Sartor  Resartus,  9,  417 

Schelling,  174-5 

Schiller,  173-4,  253,  259,  260-1 

Schlegel,  Augustus,  159-60,  162 

Scfiolar  (ripsy,  138 

Scholastic  Logic,  335-9,  379 

Schopenhauer,  182,  423 

Schubart,  Fre<lerick,  264 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  46,  71,  200-1 

Scud<:-ry,  242,  380 

Self-consciousness  in  Art,  148-9,  154, 

388-90,  391-4,  414-18 
Setniramis,  172 
Seneca,  104-6,  118,  231 
Serums  CiUl  to  a  Devout  Life,  396 
ShakesiMjare,  68,  86,  90,  91,  113,  172, 

183,  195,  232,  392-3,  400 
Shelley,  61,  69-71,  397 
Sidney,  69-71,  280-1,  359,  380-1 
Simonides,  170,  172 


452 


INDEX 


Singularity,  296-7 

Skinner,  306 

Society,  authority  of,  11 

Socialism,  276,  426 

Songs  before  Sunrise,  139 

Sophocles,  26,  101,  104,  105,  119 

Sophrou,  200 

Sj)ectcUor,  the,  criticism  in,  63-4,  123, 

129 
Spence,  Joseph,  6,  172 
Spenser,  42,  83,  102,  359 
Statius,  52-5 
Stephen,  Leslie,  362 
Stcblime  and  BecitUiful,  Burke's,  172 
Swinburne,  82,  138-41 
Swift,  375,  383 
Symbolists,  the  French,  110-20 

Tbnntson  as  a  representative  of  Law  in 
English  poetry,  406-18  ;  Tennyson's 
earliest  poems  imitative  of  Byron, 
407  ;  his  later  self -analysis,  407  ; 
adaptation  of  BjTonic  soliloquy, 
408 ;  difference  between  Byron's 
self-  consciousness  and  Tennyson's, 
408-9  ;  Locksley  Hall,  Maud,  409  ; 
Tennyson's  philosophic  doubt,  409- 
10 ;  his  self -consciousness  representa- 
tive of  that  of  society,  409  ;  examples 
of,  410  ;  seeks  perfection  of  external 
form ;  Palace  of  Art,  410-11  ; 
genius  akin  to  painter's  and  mu- 
sician's, 411;  word-painting;  In 
Memoriam,  412;  metrical  music; 
Maud,  The  Daisy,  The  Nortliern 
Farmer,  BaiUe  of  Brunanburh,  412- 
13 ;  want  of  epic  and  dramatic 
genius.  Idylls  of  the  King,  Aylmer's 
Field,  413  ;  In  Memoriam  a  mirror 
of  universal  self-consciousness,  417 

Tacitus,  253 

Tasso,  347,  363 

Taste,  8 

Taylor.  Jeremy,  23 

TertuUian,  291,  351,  352 


Tempest,  73,  195 

Thamyris,  148 

Thebais,  52-5 

Theocritus,  97,  358 

Theology,  335,  379,  381 

Thesrmopiwriazusve,  93-4 

Thyrsis,  138 

To  BArto^,  165,  199,  201,  209,  213 

T6  KaX6«',  165 

Trachiniae,  105 

Two  Foscari,  The,  401 

Unities,  The,  231-6,  281-3 

Universal,  the,  44,  62,  92,  154,   196- 

209,  294,  328,  332-42,  377-8,  386, 

415-8 
Universities,  27-28,  291,  436-40,  442 
Usios,  21 

Varus,  Quintilius,  188 
Verlaine,  116-7 
Verstegan,  306 
Vineta,  273 
Virgil,  50-2,  72,  118 
Voltaire,  172,  231,  242 

Wagner,  183 

Wallenstein,  Schiller's,  261 

Walt  Whitman,  79 

Warton,  Thomas,  6 

Werther,  Sorroics  of,  295,  395 

Wesleys,  the,  396 

William  Tell,  Schiller's,  261 

Winckelmann,  172,  290 

Wit,  false,  362,  365-7 

true,  374 

Wordsworth,  49,  61,  63,   73-8,   86-7, 

422-3,  424 
Wragg,  7 

Xenarchus,  200 
Xenophon,  69-70 

Zola,  14,  207 


THE   END 


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